Senior Project Manager (team Lead)

Job purpose

The Senior Project Manager ensures that the projects within their remit deliver the agreed business benefits on time, to budget, to the required quality standard, all within the CLS Project Governance framework.

They will be:

·         Responsible for delivery of primarily IT infrastructure projects in support of a broader portfolio spanning obsolescence, off the shelf application upgrades, Security enhancements, end user computing and network / communications solutions as assigned by the Infrastructure Portfolio Manager.

·         Responsible for defining and delivering a program of work in partnership with the relevant sponsors.

·         Ensures the program of work is effectively resourced. Responsible for recruiting, assigning, managing a team of Project Managers to deliver the program of work. Will directly manage some project delivery, as required.

·         Responsible for developing trusted relationships with a wide range of stakeholders (including all project contributors) and establishing a culture of on time delivery, holding people to account and being solution oriented.

·         Responsible for managing the work of consultants, securing and utilising internal resources in an efficient manner and maintaining a co-operative, motivated and successful team.

·         Responsible for detailed project/program reporting

Key stakeholder groups will be the Enterprise Architecture, IT Security, Testing, Risk, Infrastructure and Performance/Capacity teams

Essential Function / major duties and responsibilities of the job

Strategic

·         Defines a program of work in conjunction with PMs,  through a rigorous and highly interactive process of defining business requirements, project specifications, determining tasks, dependencies, resource allocations and environment availability.

·         Ensures robust business cases in place for projects that are adequately sponsored and prioritised. Supports PMs in seeking approvals to plans and business cases in the appropriate governance forums.

·         Ensures project benefits are measurable and agreed by all stakeholders. Responsible for demonstrating that stated benefits have been realised once the project has been delivered.

·         Relationship management; develop and maintain strong relationships with senior stakeholders, both internal and external.

Operational

•         Ensures the team manage day-to-day operational aspects of projects, scope and budgets

•         Manage and maintain interlock of projects with other project managers 

•         Validates project work plans and guides / directs PMs as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements

•         Effectively apply, support and champion the CLS Governance methodology and enforce project standards across the team

•         Review deliverables prepared by the project team before company-wide review

•         Identify all project resources and where necessary work with the PMO to secure project support resources

•         Review, validate and quality assure report project(s) risks and issues

•         Managing co-ordination of the partners and working groups engaged in project work

•         Ensure project documents are complete, current, and stored appropriately

•         Ensure project planning and control expectations are met across the team, including:

o    Developing and maintaining a detailed project plan.

o    Managing project deliverables in line with the project plan.

o    Recording and managing project issues and escalating where necessary.

o    Resolving cross-functional issues at project level.

o    Managing project scope and change control.

o    Monitoring project progress and performance from a benefit realisation, time, cost and quality perspective.

o    Providing status reports.

•         Consolidated project status reporting and liaison with project steering board/senior management

•         Program of work financial controls including summarised cost-to-completion projections, resource allocations and analysis to this data to make project decisions and provide reporting of this data

Leadership

•         Manages a team effectively through line management. Need to be able to get the best out of a team of people.

•         Display complete ownership for a program of work, leading by example

•         Coach and mentor senior and junior members of staff

•         Experienced at managing senior stakeholders ensuring strong communication and governance is in place.

•         Support the Project Managers to deliver to the required constraints of time, budget and quality and delivery of the wider program of work.

Experience / essential and desired for successful job performance

•         Experience of line management of project management  / project support staff

•         Significant practical experience of leading and managing Corporate/Infrastructure change programmes across an end-to-end project lifecycle gained within large organisations

•         Extensive hands-on experience of delivering complex IT change projects within strong project governance frameworks.

•         Have responsibility of delivering change programmes with budgets in excess of £1m

•         Excellent communication skills with practical experience of supporting technical teams to formulate and articulate business benefits through the construction of business cases

•         Demonstrable experience of quantifying the effort required to deliver a solution whilst articulating any implications of any proposed solution on the wider business and existing systems

•         Experience delivering large Microsoft based Infrastructure/Desktop, Linux/Unix, cloud services and security focused projects – good all round knowledge of most things in the infrastructure/application delivery space

•         Experienced in creating well-structured and good quality project documentation with excellent skills in the use of the MS Office suite of tools and MS Project

•         Experience of using PlanView or similar, to produce and maintain high quality project plans

•         Strong personal work ethic

•         Motivated delivery focused individual

•         Excellent interpersonal skills

•         Proven ability managing projects in a fast paced, complex, demanding environment.

Qualifications / certifications

·         Formal training or certification in Project Management Certification (MSP/PRINCE2/PMI/APM/SIX SIGMA)

·         Professional PM accreditation (Prince 2, PMI, APM etc…)

Success factors / ‘How’. Personal characteristics contributing to an individual’s ability to excel in the position

•         Proactive Leader – Strong management skills which make you effective at line management of a team and matrix management of project teams. Setting direction and establishing common goals and expectations.  Negotiating with Senior Managers, stakeholders and external suppliers and contractors.  You should be able to positively influence all stakeholders to ensure a cost effective quality deliverable whilst ensuring effective time management to get the job done.

•         Strong communicator –Demonstrable experience of communicating at a senior level in an organisation and with external stakeholders exhibits a presence and gravitas in communications. Able to articulate complex issues, advocate for recommendations and report progress clearly at all levels within a business and with senior sponsors and internal and external stakeholders.  Be well experienced in both the “Art” as well as the “Science” of project management.

•         Planning and Risk management  – A focus on project planning, tracking execution to plan. Attention to detail, meticulous. Thinks ahead and anticipates risks, plans mitigations, and supports the CLS risk culture. Where and when necessary, escalate early and appropriately to management prior to avoid issues and deviations to plan.

•         Delivery of Business Benefits – A comprehensive understanding and demonstrable experience in ensuring that all projects deliver quantified business benefits.

•         Excellent Problem-solving skills – Demonstrable competencies in solving problems and coaching others to present solutions/ recommendations as a preference to reporting issues.  Gets to the heart of the issues, challenging ‘facts’ to determine root cause in order to find the best plan to deliver the project. 

•         Consultative relationship management – Works as a partner with stakeholders providing a consultative / collegiate, solution-oriented approach that creates trusted relationships.

•         Strong People Management Skills – Able to bring the best out of people and a team through leading by example and by coaching and mentoring staff members and developing personalised self-development plans.