Portfolio Manager - Sandton Verfied

R 315 per hour Sandton, Gauteng Sandton, Gauteng more than 14 days ago 21-07-2014 5:14:36 PM
18-08-2014 5:14:36 PM
Contract: 12 months. Exp: 6 years. Start: Imm. Rate R315/hr
Manage a portfolio of projects
• For the portfolio under management (for example HR or Finance change) identify and leverage synergies between the various strategic initiatives planned and provide guidance to business engagement colleagues on how to ensure integration without creating complexity for business.
• Manage the project teams and ensure that robust governance is followed for the utilisation of business resources, offshore partners, external consultants and fixed term contractors. Update resource plans with the project team on a monthly basis.

• Monitor and control initiative delivery against defined plans. Develop and maintain a "journey plan" for the portfolios. Highlight delivery risks to the business owners and ensure that the steering committees of the initiatives are adequately engaged. Participate personally in the key programme steering committees.
• Conduct quality assurance with the project managers during baseline stages to ensure that dependencies, sequencing, timelines, risks and benefit potential is realistically planned. Review progress and support processes to re-baseline when required. Ensure detailed involvement from the business engagement team at all times.
• Liaise with business engagement teams to ensure that they are able to mobilise sponsors and business owners to support key projects. Support their efforts to negotiate resources by providing detailed plans and resource requirements.
• Ensure that there is early engagement with finance to ensure that the benefits as defined in the business cases are achievable. Monitor progress of burn rates and benefits realisation and highlight concerns to business engagement teams timeously.
• Coordinate delivery with other parts of Africa Technology (e.g. through relationships with Group Information Security, Networks, SLA management, GTIS) to ensure that project managers can have access to the right supporting resources to execute.
• Support project prioritisation processes through a thorough understanding of the capacity of the project managers in time and skill level.
• Monitor the productivity of all resources (perm, contract, partner, offshore) on the projects and ensure fair distribution of workload.
• Monitor people and process change plans linked to projects and ensure that adequate attention is paid to delivery of communication, training and stakeholder engagement.
• Provide end-to-end governance and monitoring of projects within the portfolio, ensuring compliance with Change Governance requirements and the business change lifecycle (BCL) and Africa Technology's methodologies such as Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) etc.
• Work with PMO’s across the business to continuously improve tools and methods available to project managers to effectively manage their projects.

Lead a team of project managers
• Oversee the activities of the Project Managers to ensure effective delivery of change
• Develop a high performing team by embedding formal performance development and informal coaching. Encourage frequent knowledge sharing between team members.
• Determine and analyse development needs for the team and ensure that identified training requirements are budgeted for and executed.
• Establish and maintain a succession plan for the team.
• Interview and recruit new members of the team, including determining appropriate compensation levels with input from Human Resources.
• Create effective workforce and recruitment demand plans to ensure that current and future business requirements can be met. Plans should be revised monthly to cater for changing project needs.
• Review and update the department’s organisation structure and role description on at least an annual basis to ensure that they are fit for purpose and contain all the accountabilities of each team member.
• Approve leave requests from team members and create leave plans to ensure adequate coverage.
• When required, initiate disciplinary processes for team members calling on support from Human Resources for complex matters. Resolve grievances raised by team members and escalate only if required.
• Address poor performance of any team member through the formal Performance Accelerator programme and ensure that continued poor performance is appropriately dealt with.
• Motivate team members and ensure that their efforts are recognised.
• Participate in the creation and implementation of Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) actions for the business area.
• Mentor and coach the project managers (as direct reports) but also other resources

that are assigned to this portfolio to ensure a common understanding of priorities and objectives.
• Participate in talent review sessions to actively promote the rotation of project managers with a focus on playing to the strengths of the team members.

Education and Experience Required
• B-degree in Science, Engineering or Business Administration (NQF level 6)
• At least 10 years project management experience
• A formal project management qualification (such as PMBOK or CMP) would be an advantage

Recruiter: O2 Placements