Job Description

Job Title: PMO Services Manager

Grade:

Details
About SLC
Student Loans Company (SLC) is a non-profit making Government-owned organisation set up in 1989 to provide loans and grants to students in universities and colleges in the UK.We are responsible, in partnership with Local Authorities in England and Wales, the Student Awards Agency for Scotland, the Education and Library boards in Northern Ireland, the Higher Education Institutions and HM Revenue & Customs, for student support delivery in the UK.
SLC continuously delivers change projects to support our customers and stakeholders needs, which regularly includes the development and introduction of new products and services. In addition, we are currently undertaking an excitingTransformation programme to help us achieve our vision, which is to become a digital, customer focused centre of excellence.
Job Purpose
To establish and deliver a consistent range of PMO services across a breadth of projects to support effective management of delivery, in addition to providing quality assurance, continuous improvement of tools and processes, and development of the PMO team.
Key Accountabilities
  • Establish, own and continuously improve the Project Management delivery framework and methodology, working with the PPM Practice Lead to ensure education and usage to agreed quality standards across the function;
  • Manage the production of a consolidated, consistent and timely suite of Programme and Portfolio reports, ensuring consistent information is published to relevant stakeholders (internal and external), to include owning the completion of balanced scorecard returns for all programme activity;
  • Own the governance model and associated guidelines for meeting forums, purpose, attendees and materials, ensuring consistency of governance structures and approach;
  • Complete a monthly resource management report for Programme Management, assessing current and future availability of Project and Programme resources, aligned to Portfolio Delivery Plans;
  • Manage the fulfilment of the wider teams administrative requests, ensuring that policy is followed where appropriate;
  • Create and maintain a record of project benefits, working with suppliers, project managers and operations to track planned vs. actual;
  • Maintain a set of current PMO tools, fit for purpose and with flexibility, to deliver PMO required output and ad hoc requests;
  • Proactively support the wider PPM team and project teams in general in understanding and applying PMO templates, guidelines and tools;
  • Develop and implement a quality assurance approach, to include taking responsibility for regularly undertaking formal (quality assurance) reviews of projects, specifically focused on project deliverable quality and status, and produce a report for each project citing action required to address any areas of concern;
  • Manage and maintain tight Change Control reporting across the portfolio, ensuring adherence to best practice methods and procedures;
  • Ensure risks and issues are regularly tracked and that escalation processes are in place and adhered to, tracking through to risk acceptance and issue resolution/ closure;
  • Manage the production of regular financial management reports liaising with the finance team to resolve any anomalies arising;
  • Recruit, line manage and develop PMA and PSO resources (including performance, training plans, career paths, and succession planning);
  • Encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration across the team, to include taking responsibility for the creation and maintenance of document standards and archiving policy;
  • Maintain an awareness and understanding of best practice PMO tools, processes and guidelines. Proactively share these with the PMO team through collaborative working, coaching and knowledge sharing, and with the wider team through communication and education sessions.
Essential Skills / Experience / Qualifications
  • Degree preferred;
  • Prince 2 qualified with experience in project management methodologies and practices;
  • Experience of working as aPMO Manager and managing a team to deliver a breadth of PMO services across a range of projects and programmes;
  • Experience of working within a Programme delivery environment;
  • Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills;
  • Excellent MS Project knowledge;
  • Working knowledge of MS Office suite, including Power Point;
  • Demonstrable ability to build positive relationships through strong communication, influencing and negotiating with project and programme stakeholders, including the PMO team;
  • Evidence of a structured approach to addressing identifying gaps, solving problems and working through to resolution
  • Good time-management; with ability to deliver to deadlines;
  • Highly organised;
  • Attention to detail;
  • Proactive team builder.
Desirable Skills / Experience
  • Experience of working in an agile environment
Key Outputs
  • Informed and educated Programme Management team, fully utilising an appropriate delivery methodology, consistently;
  • Effective and efficient Programme Management forums;
  • Programme Management plans (various levels);
  • Programme Management reports (various levels);
  • Risks and issues log(s)
  • Financial Management reports;
  • Documentation policy and standards;
  • Benefits tracker;
  • Current and relevant PMO tools, standards, templates and guidelines.