Employment Spot

Job Description

Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL) is the world�s largest publisher and distributor of children�s books and a leader in educational technology and children�s media. Scholastic creates quality educational and entertaining materials and products for use in school and at home, including children's books, magazines, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys. The Company distributes its products and services through a variety of channels, including proprietary school-based book clubs and school-based book fairs, retail stores, schools, libraries, television networks and the Company�s Internet Site, www.scholastic.com.

Scholastic, the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology and children's media, is currently seeking a: Release Manager

Manage, lead and coordinate all aspects of release management for multiple projects and major enhancement releases. Release Management includes planning, coordinating and integration across various functions in upcoming application releases. The Release Manager will create a Release Plan to be updated regularly to include all aspects for a given release, resource assignments, & key milestones working closely with the Change Control Board. Responsibilities include implementing a Release Planning Board to accomplish the coordination and integration of multiple releases.

The Release Manger will interface directly with various stakeholders by coordinating and defining priorities and future release content, manage the coordination of all release activities, and work closely with the Project Managers and technical teams to assure progress and mitigate any issues impacting the releases. Manage the reporting and weekly status updates. In addition, the Release Manager will be responsible for running and managing Crisis Events. This will include creating and managing a Crisis Management process and communication plan.

Responsibilities:
� Work closely with the project and development teams to coordinate all components with enhancement and project releases, as well, as ongoing stability and content changes.
� Partner closely with the Change Control Board.
� Manage and escalate cross team and dependencies for each release, assess risks, and plan and communicate with key stakeholders.
� Document and communicate release processes and status to project and development teams.
� Maintain and communicate post-release statistics and metrics.
� Identify and run Crisis events for major outages.
� Continually evaluate and integrate process improvements back into the overall release process.
� Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced, sometimes stressful environment and make quick, calculated decisions.
� Can troubleshoot issues during release activities and call-in key players to obtain resolution.
� Assist with change requests and issues escalations assessing business, test, development, resource, and operations impact.
� Assist in preparation of release notes.
� Work with developers to ensure a smooth development cycle in a multi-code/multi-test environment.
� Release Go/No-Go facilitation

Job Requirements

Requirements/Skills:
� 5 or more years experience in a release management role, preferably in a technology environment.
� Proven experience working with technical and business team across multiple functional areas.
� Demonstrated experience leading application, network, and systems implementations.
� Ability to work independently with focus towards company vision and direction.
� Experience with MS Project.
� Strong interpersonal, presentation, oral and written skills.
� Ability to create project/program reviews, reports and presentations to senior management
� Extensive experience with all aspects of SDLC management.
� ITIL experience a plus.
� Prior experience with publishing ideal but not required.

Other Key Skills:
� Aptitude and ability to learn.
� Ability to deliver.
� Driver.