Operational Readiness Analyst

Beacon Hill; Lake Forest (IL); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Beacon Hill is seeking an Operational Readiness Analyst in Lake Forest, IL for a hybrid role (on-site Tue, Wed, Thu). The analyst ensures that new applications, infrastructure solutions, and technology initiatives are operationally prepared for go-live and ongoing production support, partnering with project managers, service delivery teams, and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities include coordinating readiness activities across the project lifecycle, conducting readiness assessments,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in IT, CS, business, or related field.
• 3+ years of IT operations or service management experience.
• Experience in ITIL-based service management environments.
• Knowledge of change, incident, problem, and release management processes.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate and facilitate Operational Readiness activities throughout the project lifecycle.
• Conduct readiness assessments for projects, enhancements, and technology initiatives.
• Ensure operational requirements are identified, tracked, and completed prior to implementation.
• Monitor readiness milestones and communicate risks, issues, and dependencies.
• Facilitate readiness review meetings and stakeholder signoff activities.
• Validate that applications and infrastructure solutions are prepared for production deployment.
• Ensure support models, ownership, escalation paths, and operational procedures are established.
• Coordinate production support handoffs between project and operations teams.
• Verify service acceptance criteria are met before implementation.
• Review and validate operational documentation including Runbooks, SOPs, Knowledge Articles, and recovery procedures.
• Identify operational risks and readiness gaps; develop mitigation plans.
• Ensure compliance with IT governance, change management, and service management standards.
• Support audit and compliance activities related to operational readiness.

Skills

Organizational skills

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration, or related field

Tools

ITIL

Job description

Our client is actively seeking an Operational Readiness Analyst for their growing team based out of Lake Forest, IL

This opportunity is hybrid 3 days onsite in Lake Forest, IL (T, W, Th)

Summary

The Operational Readiness Analyst is responsible for ensuring that new applications, infrastructure solutions, system enhancements, and technology initiatives are operationally prepared for successful implementation and ongoing support. This role partners with project managers, service delivery teams, infrastructure teams, application owners, and business stakeholders to coordinate and validate operational readiness activities, mitigate deployment risk, and facilitate the transition of solutions into production support.

The analyst serves as a key liaison between project delivery and operational support organizations, ensuring all operational requirements, documentation, training, support models, monitoring, disaster recovery, and service management processes are established before go-live.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Readiness Management

• Coordinate and facilitate Operational Readiness (OR) activities throughout the project lifecycle.
• Conduct readiness assessments for projects, enhancements, and technology initiatives.
• Ensure operational requirements are identified, tracked, and completed prior to implementation.
• Monitor project readiness milestones and communicate risks, issues, and dependencies.
• Facilitate readiness review meetings and stakeholder signoff activities.

Service Transition & Production Readiness

• Validate that applications and infrastructure solutions are prepared for production deployment.
• Ensure support models, ownership, escalation paths, and operational procedures are established.
• Coordinate production support handoffs between project and operations teams.
• Verify service acceptance criteria are met before implementation.

Documentation & Knowledge Management

• Review and validate operational documentation including:
• Runbooks and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
• Knowledge Articles
• Service recovery procedures
• Ensure documentation is complete, current, and accessible to support teams.

Risk & Compliance Management

• Identify operational risks and readiness gaps.
• Develop mitigation and remediation plans for identified issues.
• Ensure compliance with IT governance, change management, and service management standards.
• Support audit and compliance activities related to operational readiness.

Service Management Integration

• Partner with Service Delivery, Infrastructure, Security, Disaster Recovery, and Application Support teams.
• Ensure Configuration Management Database (CMDB) requirements are satisfied.
• Verify monitoring, alerting, capacity planning, and availability requirements are implemented.
• Support change management and release readiness activities.

Reporting & Metrics

• Maintain operational readiness dashboards and status reports.
• Track readiness tasks, milestones, and deliverables.
• Provide executive and leadership reporting on readiness status, risks, and project health.
• Measure post-implementation success against defined operational objectives.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration, or related field.
• 3+ years of experience in IT operations, service management, project management, operational readiness, or service transition.
• Experience working within ITIL-based service management environments.
• Knowledge of change management, incident management, problem management, and release management processes.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience working with cross-functional technical and business teams.