Duration: Permanent

Salary:   Circa £50k per annum

Hours: 35 hours per week. Other flexible or part-time arrangements may be considered.

Disclosure Level: Basic

Reports to:  Head of Project Management Office

Location: Working from home and at 1 Westfield Avenue, London E20 1HZ, at least 1 day a week.

At the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK), we work together to achieve the best possible results for children in danger around the world.  We believe in an inclusive workplace and in the power of fulfilled colleagues who share the same values and goals, enjoy their work, and are motivated to do their utmost for children. 

Our work is guided by the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which recognise the universality of children’s rights.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Project Management Office exists as the standard setters for project management across the organisation. We are the keepers of best practices and project status and a home for project management resource.  Our key responsibilities are:

·       Standards and controls: the creation and governance of a UNICEF UK way to running projects efficiently

·       Training and development: increasing project management and agile capabilities within UNICEF UK to run projects effectively

·       Resource: being a set of experts who can be deployed on to strategic or transformation projects or initiatives

·       Portfolio Management: overseeing core organisational priorities to ensure executive oversight and management

The Project Management Office (PMO) sits within the Strategy Directorate, within the Executive Directors Office. The PMO works with a hybrid approach to deliver a range of projects across the organisation.

As a team, the Project Management Office expedites the development of new campaign ideas, opportunities or initiatives that have the potential to either improve how we work or how we deliver impact for children.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for an ambitious and highly collaborative Senior Project Manager to join our team. The Senior Project Manager will bring a wealth of diverse project and change management experience to the team. The Senior Project Manager will work cross-organisationally to provide specialist project and change management services, leading key strategic projects, campaigns and programmes of work.

The Senior Project Manager can expect to work in a collaborative and supportive manner with colleagues across all areas of the business, maintaining a high standard of delivery.

What we will expect you to achieve

• Work with project sponsors and steering groups to understand and define complex, cross-functional projects and programmes.

• Manage multiple simultaneous projects, programmes and campaigns through all stages of the project life cycle. Ensure all campaign activities and projects are delivered on-time, within scope and budget, using robust project management approaches and methodology, with comprehensive project documentation.

• Continuously anticipate, manage and monitor project and programme risks, escalating to sponsors where appropriate.

• Ensure effective and proactive project control and reporting.

• Conduct impact analyses, assess change readiness and produce and deliver change management strategies. integrate these with project plans.

• Provide flexible project management solutions for strategic projects. Use appropriate techniques, methodologies, and Unicef UK’s in-house Project Management Framework to deliver the best solution for the organisation

• Effectively manage and communicate with internal and external stakeholders. Establish and maintain positive and collaborative relationships with colleagues and teams across the organisation. 

• Contribute to the success of the PMO by promoting the work of the team across the organisation, adding value and expertise by contributing to the embedding of best-practice project and change management standards, and our Project Management Framework across the organisation.

• Contribute to the development of PMO and Project Management Network colleagues, by sharing expertise, know-how and extensive experience of managing a variety of different projects in contexts of complex change.

• Demonstrate and model a commitment to our shared values, behaviours and inclusive practices (known as Our Shared Commitment) in all aspects of your work

   

BEHAVIOURS, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

This section contains the essential behaviours, experience, knowledge and skills needed in order to be effective and successful in this role. All criteria in this section are essential

Effective behaviours

Supporter driven and mission aligned

• Is committed to children and their rights and motivated to work towards achieving a world that is fit for every child.

Complexity and judgement

·       Makes day to day project management and priority setting decisions with limited reference to line manager

·       Relies on extensive prior learning and considers multiple factors and variables to resolve complex issues.

·       Is comfortable exercising sound professional judgement in ambiguous and fast changing environments

People Management

·       Builds and leads teams with clear roles, responsibilities, and deliverables

Communication

• Conveys complex ideas using a variety of methods to engage an audience and win

understanding and support.

• Presents complex and difficult messages clearly and with impact.

• Anticipates and responds to the needs of an audience, adapting content, style, language and use of channel to deliver maximum clarity.

Efficiency and effectiveness

• Proactive and assertive self-starter, able to take a lead and work confidently with little oversight

• Manage conflicting priorities to ensure that objectives are achieved, and deadlines met.

• Systematically plans projects to maximise performance and cost-effectiveness.

• Evaluates work, learns from results and adjusts strategies to provide the best results for children.

• Suggests simplifications to overly complex ways of working to improve results.

Resilience

• Remains positive and quickly recovers from setbacks, keeping problems in perspective.

• Takes a solution focused approach to problem solving to succeed in difficult circumstances.

Relevant experience

·       Experience and successful track record of managing a variety of different projects to time and budget in a complex environment, working with a diverse range of stakeholders.

·       Experience working in a PMO setting

·       Experience embedding new ways of working organisation-wide

·       Experience accessing change capacity and devising and implementing a change strategy

·       Line management experience

Specific knowledge and skills

• Experience using a variety of project and change management methodologies, tools and frameworks

• Excellent communication (oral and written) and senior stakeholder management