Senior Project Manager in London

Requirements

• Confident and effective communicator (both written and verbal) across all levels of the organisation.
• Confident in facilitating medium to large sized workshops and meetings with stakeholders.
• Ability to motivate, influence and constructively challenge where appropriate.
• Ability to build and maintain strong relationships across the business and with external parties including key delivery partners.
• Strong organisational and planning skills with the ability to manage multiple projects, resources, priorities and deliverables to tight deadlines.
• Passionate about developing a work environment that embraces and values diversity.
• Attention to detail and the ability to articulate complex ideas/concepts to stakeholders.
• Ability to anticipate, prioritise and resolve issues using problem solving and analytical skills.
• Well-developed interpersonal skills, leading by example and exercising good judgment and decision making skills.
• Strong programme budgetary control and financial management.
• Advanced understanding and practical application of project management methodologies.
• Significant and demonstrable track record of end to end delivery of projects, including demonstrable experience of successfully turning around failing projects, building momentum, and buy-in to a new project.
• Financial Services Experience (essential).
• Life and Pensions experience (desirable).
• Risk/Regulatory Change Delivery Experience (essential).
• Experience of leading business, technical and regulatory projects, working with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience of working in a highly controlled and regulated environment.
• Working effectively with stakeholders at different levels.

What the job involves

• This role will reside within our Life business unit as part of the Change & Transformation team.
• The overall Change team’s purpose being to provide oversight and assurance on all aspects of business change and transformation delivery for or impacting our Life business, whilst ensuring change and transformation delivery is aligned to both our Life and wider M&G strategy.
• These roles own the end-to-end delivery of medium to highly complex projects.
• You will be responsible for driving the definition of the business case, project objectives, scope, resources and expected business outcomes, together with detailed project plans.
• You will be expected to implement and adhere to the required project management methodologies and governance and provide the project team, including our key delivery partners, with direction and confidence to deliver and leverage the expected benefits.
• Own the end to end delivery of medium to highly complex projects, identifying key business stakeholders; leading on defining business case, project objectives, scope, resources and agreed set of expected benefits and outcomes.
• In conjunction with the Project Sponsor, communicate the outcomes/benefits of the project across the organisation to garner support and buy-in.
• Create and maintain high quality project plans (with built in risk mitigation strategies) and work packages that support delivery, ensuring that responsibilities are assigned to project resources.
• Evaluate delivery options and the team’s performance, providing feedback where necessary and adjusting plans at regular intervals against the scope, schedule, budget, risks, outcomes and benefits.
• Provide regular forecasts of the future Change and BAU resources required for the project.
• Provide the project team with direction and confidence to deliver and ensure that the project delivers the required benefits and outcomes within the specified tolerances of time, cost, quality, scope, benefit and risk.
• Undertake regular lessons learnt sessions during the life of the project, implementing agreed recommendations to ensure the project team learns from experience and proactively shares lessons with the broader Project Management community.
• Adhere to governance standards, including Project Change Standard and guidelines, maintaining accurate RACI and RAID logs and Service Now records.
• Produce timely management information ensuring all mandatory documentation (e.g. business case, requirement documents/user stories, stage gates, test plans, change requests, closure documents) is completed and signed off at the appropriate stages during the life of the project and establish appropriate governance to reflect the complexity of the project as required.
• Forecast future external costs, understand the drivers of project cost variance and take actions to control costs to budgets or raise change control.
• Monitor and report progress to the impacted stakeholders (e.g. sponsor(s), Programme manager, Change Programme Directors, steering committee) including ongoing business case viability.
• Independently identify and take ownership of issues, risks and dependencies, making recommendations to mitigate the risk or to reduce/remove issues. Escalate where appropriate to maintain progress towards project delivery and act as an escalation point on behalf of the Project Sponsor.
• Complete handover to BAU, and business benefits realisation activities to close off projects.
• Manage resource planning and motivate the project team to ensure a high standard of output, focused on customer satisfaction and delivery through developing others through providing ongoing guidance, mentoring or coaching.
• Manage relationships with required teams e.g. Technology, external suppliers and other business functions to achieve timely delivery.
• Support the Lead Programme Management Officer in establishing appropriate governance and assuring that the Project Change Standard is appropriately applied.
• Conduct training workshops with Project Managers focused on improving both project and change management capabilities across the Project Management team.