Project Manager

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Project Manager

Salary plus benefits

The company

A software and services company that provides integrated Financial Management, Spend Control, Performance Management and ERP solutions to organisations around the UK, and in some cases around Europe.

We deliver solutions that balance innovation with practicality to help our customers control and streamline their business processes, and ultimately improve their bottom line performance.

Their solutions are deployed on the cloud or on premise and come from some of the world's most highly regarded software vendors.

Background to the Role

This post is becoming available due to expansion of the team and career progression of colleagues. It represents expansion of the role and demonstrates our long-term commitment to deliver on our ambitious growth plans.

The role involves management of all customer projects. All such projects are managed across a structured methodology that can be likened to Prince 2, involving stages of work for:

1 Project Planning and Ongoing Management

2 Installation and Optimisation of the Technical EnvironmentProject Team Orientation

3 Business Mapping and Solution Design

4 System Build and Integration

5 User Acceptance Testing

6 End User Training

7 Data Migration

8 Live Running

9 Closure and Post Implementation Review

Our implementation methodology is mature, well-tested and respected by customers. It facilitates clear monitoring and open dialogue with customers about project progress, issues and changes in risks.

About the Role

The Project Manager reports to the General Manager and is responsible for managing how they delivers all its customer-facing projects.

Twenty or more projects may be under management at any one time, each requiring coordination with a different Project Manager at the client side of the project. In almost all cases the joint project team will be working against tight deadlines, limited customer budgets, and high expectations.

Typical activities of the role include:

* Liaising with the Account Manager responsible for the sale to understand new projects including their scope, workshare, budget, risks, etc

* Planning and documenting projects with input from client teams - most commonly via online meetings, but also on-site with clients if required

* Scheduling projects in the face of finite resource and challenging customer expectations,

including diarising and communicating multiple concurrent/competing work schedules

* Assisting with the job of estimating the amount of time required for pieces of work and identifying the most appropriate resource

* Reviewing daily work records and project documents submitted by colleagues to ensure they are consistent with project plans and scopeMonitoring progress against plan, including review of daily services reports submitted by colleagues

* Identifying issues and/or slippage and alerting the client Project Manager coordinating the team as required to deal with them

* Managing change to projects and escalating to the Account Manager as required, including an assessment of the impact of the change on budget/scope/timescales/risk/etc

* Coordination with colleagues who are working on projects to pick up issues/delays/changes/etc

* Scheduling and hosting regular project update calls or on-site steering committee/project board meetings with the client team and staff as appropriate

* Driving sign-off of key project documents, including prompts and reminders to client teams and colleagues as required

* Acting as a focal point for communications throughout the project's life, and especially during key periods such as testing or in the first few weeks of live running

* Reviewing risk and issue logs and escalating/coordinating resource to deal with these as required, including occasional use of clients' own project management tools

* Advancing the methodology, including proposal of changes to improve processes, documentation, and maintaining standard samples and models to build up a library of re­usable project resources.

* Improving our use of collaborative tools and platforms such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint

* Communicating and delivering training to keep colleagues up to date with agreed changes in the methodology or any new use of technology tools

* Learning and keeping up to date with the business applications we implement at a level of detail that is sufficient to support effective project management

* Recording and tracking project management time spent against projects and communicating this information to the clients

Knowledge and Experience

The role requires a mix of specific project management skills and experience, together with general business and technical knowledge plus a mix of interpersonal, consultative, and negotiation skills.

The ideal candidate will have a good degree and will have experience of managing multiple concurrent high-profile IT systems projects for sponsors at Board level in Finance, IT, or Procurement.

Application areas impacted by these projects will have included some or all of the following: ERP, Financial Management; Procurement; or Performance Management and Analytics.

About the person

The successful candidate will have excellent written and oral communication skills, and will:

Have an analytical approach to problem solving

Be highly IT literate and lead in the adoption of new technologies

Understand the difference between effort and outcome