This role is offered on a hybrid contract giving you the opportunity to also work from home three days a week.

PURPOSE OF JOB: 

The  Senior Project Manager will join the Business Services team at an exciting time as we launch new projects to improve our ways of working across the organisation. This role will be instrumental in ensuring a successful implementation of our 2024 CRM project, working alongside a dedicated business analyst and cross functional project team.  

As Senior Project Manager you will be responsible for ensuring the overarching planning, management and coordination of Comic Relief’s CRM Project. The role will work with cross-disciplinary teams to ensure planning processes, project governance and reporting is completed. 

The successful candidate will work closely with a range of stakeholders across the organisation, including Fundraising, Partnerships, Technology and Data to deliver a new CRM system that meets business and user needs on time and within budget. This role will have full responsibility for daily project management for the CRM project within Comic Relief and will work closely with our chosen implementation partner. 

This role would suit someone who can earn trust and respect from senior stakeholders, manage relationships, understand technical challenges, come up with creative solutions and communicate complex matters concisely. Experience of a CRM implementation of a similar scale would be preferred but candidates with experience of working with an implementation partner on other large technology projects would also be considered. 

The CRM is currently at the procurement stage with Requests for Proposals sent to invited suppliers in December 2023. As this is a live project candidates must be available to  start by 4th March 2024. 

Interviews will take place on the on 29/01/2024, ideally in person, in our London office.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:  

• Manage the CRM project across the full project lifecycle, including project briefing, scoping, set up, governance, planning, task management, communication, coordiation and tracking and reporting.  

• Manage the procurement process and any linked consultations, ensuring compliance with Comic Relief’s Procurement Policy. 

• Work with the project management office to track the CRM Project, taking on overall responsibility for the success and learning of the project. 

• Work with cross functional stakeholders, project team and implementation partner to manage the delivery of the CRM Project, ensuring it is delivered on time and within budget. 

• Maintain internal focus on the CRM Project, ensuring momentum on the project and regular communications to all Stakeholders. Establish and deliver an effective Stakeholder Communication Plan. 

• Work with Stakeholders and project team to ensure dependencies and risks are actively managed, acting as an arbiter and supporting the resolution of issues.  

• Identify and manage dependencies and risks of varying complexity across the project taking corrective action or highlighting issues for escalation as required  

• Lead Discovery Phase with chosen implementation partner to ensure scope of initial MVP is agreed, documented and accurately reflected in contract documents. Ensure future phases of delivery are also documented and agreed with implementation partner and project Steering Group. 

• Represent Comic Relief with chosen implementation partner ensuring decisions and actions taken represent Comic Relief’s best interests as defined within the system capabilities and scope documents. 

• Use tracking and reporting tools and briefings/huddles that ensure that the progress of all project activity is communicated, changing the nature of the CRM project as it develops. 

• Member of CRM Steering Group, recording outcomes of meetings, presenting to senior stakeholders and ensuring effective project governance and decision making. 

• Represent project management best practice and identify and facilitate learning opportunities that create efficient and smart ways of working. 

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES: 

• Understanding of project management methodologies, including Agile, and experience of working with different approaches to project management 

• Experience of monitoring and evaluation of project performance, including objective setting, developing toolkits, reporting and driving the learning process with stakeholders to achieve ongoing effectiveness 

• Good understanding of project budget development and analysis 

• Ability to understand risks, issues and dependencies of a project and synthesise this information to provide accurate and timely advice to drive decision making 

• Effective relationship builder with strong stakeholder management and communication skills, and the ability to adapt to different styles and ways of working 

• Experience of supporter CRM or other system implementation, working with an external implementation partner. 

• Experience of leading cross organisational change projects. 

• Accredited Project Management qualification preferrable but not essential 

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Comic Relief we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Why work at Comic Relief

There are lots of good reasons to join us at Comic Relief. You can read more about our employee benefits, such as our commitment to flexible and hybrid working. We ask staff to come to the office twice a week, normally on agreed team days, so that we can do all those things that are difficult to do online. Our office is based in Whitechapel, London, There are lots of opportunities to develop your skills and experience at Comic Relief, including opportunities to become a Mental Health First Aider or to participate in our Employee Network Groups that focus on making Comic Relief a more inclusive place to work.

Disability Confident employer

 As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we take positive action by providing first-round interviews to candidates who have a registered disability, provided they meet the minimum criteria for the role, as demonstrated on their CV.

We ask that candidates that wish to be considered for this scheme email j.scott@comicrelief.com to discuss further. Please do not email CV's/cover letters.