Lead, Technical - Operational Readiness

At Ontario Health, we are committed to developing a strong organizational culture that connects and inspires all team members across the province. Our vision is that together, we will be a leader in health and wellness for all. Our mission is to connect the health system to drive improved and equitable health outcomes, experiences and value. How we work together is reflected through our five values: integrity, inspiration, tenacity, humility and care.  

• Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage from your first day 

• a health care spending account 

• a premium defined benefit pension plan 

• three personal days and two float days annually 

• three weeks’ vacation to start (for individual contributors), increasing to four weeks after two years

• career development opportunities 

• a collaborative values-based team culture 

• a wellness program

• a hybrid working model 

• participation in Communities of Inclusion  

Want to make a difference in your career?  Consider this opportunity.  

The Lead, Technical – Operational Readiness will provide leadership in the continued evolution of the infrastructure hardware and software ensuring supportability, scalability, robustness, and performance within Ontario Health’s state of the art infrastructure. The incumbent will act as a senior member of the team across varied technologies providing software and hardware life cycle management. This role will provide senior subject matter expertise for multiple IT infrastructure products, new projects, and services focusing on the seamless transition of new or changed services from a project into a live operational state. This position interacts with architecture team, project management, Technical Operations Centre stakeholders, other technical teams, and vendors to maintain a mission critical infrastructure.

Here is what you will be doing:

• Identifies gaps, risks and dependencies in project/product/portfolio deliverables and roadmaps and provides guidance for planning and delivery to address gaps and risks.

• Consults and collaborates with program and operational teams (internal and external) to plan and execute service and process improvement initiatives and maintain defined service levels and support models to ensure quality and delivery.

• Influences and guides lead developers and operational resources related to infrastructure best practices and principles.

• Create support models that align with established Service Level Agreements (SLA), Operations Level Agreements (OLA), and underpinning contracts

• Develop, design, and implement necessary support processes to ensure operational support staff for any new/changed service has clear understanding of support roles and responsibilities

• Collaborate with product value-based streams and project work streams as well as operational support teams; providing guidance to product/project resources and operational support personnel to ensure positive client impact as new and changed services move into steady-state operational support mode

• Coaches and mentors for products and services for which they are lead (e.g., OLIS, CDR, OneID).

• Guides and influences portfolios and partners to align solutions to Ontario Health’s digital vision considering provincial, national, and international mandates.

• Collaborates with, guides and mentors senior, junior and peers by elevating their breadth and scope of knowledge of infrastructure solutions, the Healthcare domain, and best practices, supporting the development, delivery and operation of solutions and documentation.

• Directs, trains, mentors and coaches transformation, customer value and product/service team members and functional experts to grow capabilities and key skills.

• Fosters a culture of engagement that develops and motivates their teams by fostering an inclusive work environment, collaboration, communicating architecture vison, and strategies.

• Works with product/portfolio management, support roadmaps, and architectural alignment to ensure delivery of project, product, portfolio objectives

• delivers service quality at the Product and Service Level with the specialty domain they represent. (e.g., EHR, Identity Management, Infrastructure, Data).

• Fosters sustainable, trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders, partners, colleagues, and superiors.

• Acts as subject matter expert to internal and external stakeholders in specialized areas.

• Acts as a subject matter expert for OH partners to support understanding the use of infrastructure products and services.

• Works with internal and external stakeholders to understand business needs across OH and their impact on specific products/portfolios.

• Identifies and escalate issues and works with clients to ensure adherence to application and service level management and quality standards.

• Provides thought leadership across the OH business areas.

• Guides and influences project/product/portfolio teams to align and build with an eye to OH's architectural and operational principles and industry best practices.

• Contributes to Roadmaps and product vision.

• Provides alternative solutions and options for business and technical challenges.

• Makes decisions that have a major impact where errors could impact patient care and OH reputation.

Here is what you will need to be successful:

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a related field.

• 5 to 7 years of experience as a Senior specialist in a broad range of products/services/technology/health care domains.

• ITIL certification V3 / V4 Foundation required.

• Resource management experience is an asset but not required.

• Client management experience is an asset.

• Leadership of an operational service delivery practice is an asset but not required.

• Knowledge of Ontario Health, and the broader Ontario health care sector IT systems to ensure product dependencies are identified and managed.

• In-depth knowledge of disciplines such as Business practices, Applications, Information, Infrastructure, Privacy and/or Security. Knowledge of service management, control and architecture frameworks such as ITIL and the means to apply to a technical and business environment to drive value and quality.

• Knowledge of administration tools such as O365 suite.

• In-depth knowledge of workflow tools such as BMC Remedy or other case management and ticketing system. Understanding of server administration scheduled maintenance and deployment/release activities a benefit.

• Knowledge and understanding of practices, tools and techniques for managing changes, incidents and problems (BMC Remedy or another similar tool).

• In-depth knowledge and understanding of technology planning/service Roadmaps, Strategy and Operating Plan development.

• Strong Knowledge of any or all of the disciplines such as: (1) Data Centre technologies, including co-location, facilities and green operations; (2) Hosting, including monitoring solutions, compute, storage and backup, network, resiliency/recoverability, information assurance (e.g. archiving), security, common services (e.g. DNS), enterprise management, virtualization, cloud, (3) Corporate technologies, including Active Directory, desktop/virtual desktop, mobile, social, enterprise mail, information assurance (e.g. archiving), enterprise architecture principles and management, (4) Service Level management principles and practices to ensure quality and delivery to defined metrics and support models, and (5) Vendor delivery models and agreements.

• Familiarity with Enterprise Reporting tools (e.g., BigFix, PowerBI or other reporting tools).

• Understanding of Ontario Health business, goals and mandate and how it applies to the provincial health care system.

• Experience with OH procurement processes (gathering requirements to evaluation of vendors’ response).

• Strong knowledge of organizational processes and business models.

• Strong knowledge and understanding of policies, cross organizational roles, risk management, and governance.

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to identify gaps and opportunities within a domain, sector and/or solution, lead service recovery activities during major incidents, identify issues, provide alternative solutions and options for business and technical challenges.

• Strong communications skills, both orally and in writing, to influence technical decisions and solutions; facilitate and negotiate in support of internal and external partner engagement; deliver presentation material, design documents and/or training material intended for technical audiences.

• Ability to define and drive alternative solutions to meet business and technical problems across teams, portfolios, and products.

• Ability to troubleshoot/triage using a variety of tools and techniques for anticipating, recognizing, and resolving technical (hardware, software, network and operational) problems. Provide on-call support 24 x 7 x 365.

• Ability to direct and influence Business and technical decisions and processes.

• Ability to influence and guide solutions to align to enterprise vision and roadmaps. Solving complex problems that span multiple assets.

• Ability to apply IT privacy and security standards, principles and regulations applicable to health technical solutions.

• Ability to apply health information management .

• Ability to work on, prioritize and deliver projects/initiatives according to agreed-upon timelines amidst constantly changing priorities.

• Ability to understand and translate tactical and operational business requirements into effective practice and business solutions.

• Ability to resolve business rules, information and application conflicts involving shared services, applications and resources.

• Technically savvy with business understanding and the ability to communicate to internal and external business stakeholders and technical staff alike to build consensus and resolve technical issues and conflicts.

• Ability to understand disparate health IT systems’ place in the Health System and compare and contrast solutions and patterns to recommend/propose efficient and effective technical and business solutions.

• Ability to understand various types of business, privacy, security, and financial risks. Collaborate with peers and senior specialists to define mitigation strategies.

• Ability to apply service level management principles, metrics, and key performance indicators to ensure quality and best practices for services within scope.

• Ability to work with a high level of autonomy in setting objectives based on minimal direction from management.

• Ability to collaborate with software vendors, program, and operational resources to ensure alignment of practices, patterns and solutions.

• Ability to stay current on business strategy and assess new trends with respect to Ontario Health’s business needs, and identify opportunities, impacts and transformations required to realize their value and assess their implications on the future state of Ontario Health.

• Ability to stay abreast of technology, architecture, and solution design trends.

• Ability to work with internal and external stakeholders to understand business needs across OH and trends in IT across the industry.

• Ability to make decisions where results have a major impact.

• Capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically within product/project teams.​

Location: Ontario (currently hybrid; subject to change)

All applicants must be a resident of Ontario to be considered for roles at Ontario Health.

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