PMO Programme Planner - Academic Services - 100742 - Grade 8

Position Details

Academic Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £46,485 to £55,295 with potential progression once in post to £62,098

Grade: 8

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to December 2025

Closing date: 13th November 2024

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do. The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high-quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus, we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with a pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum, and botanical gardens.

Background

StARS (Student Administration Refresh and Simplification) is a University-wide programme to simplify, standardise and improve our student administration services, enabled by a replacement and upgrade of our student record system. Its vision is to deliver a better experience for students, academics, and Professional Services staff; and enables a fundamental shift towards a more flexible set of capabilities and services that are fit for the future.

Role Summary

Reporting to the PMO Manager, the StARS programme is looking to recruit a PMO Programme Planner / Support Officer to join the Programme’s PMO Team. The post holder will split their time between providing the programme and its individual projects with support in all aspects associated with maintaining / owning the Programme plan and general PMO responsibilities.

Main Duties

• Define, develop and implement project planning standards and outline approach, ensuring programme and project planning capability maturity is developed across the breadth of the programme.
• Facilitate the design and development of high-level schematic roadmaps and detailed programme and project plans in collaboration with the programme or project managers/workstream leads, ensuring that all milestones and internal and external dependencies are identified, logged and monitored.
• Ensure that plans are maintained and updated using forecasting to advise on potential missed milestones and dependencies, creating impact assessments to ensure that plans anticipate future developments where possible.
• In collaboration with programme/project managers and workstream leads, ensure the range of plans (e.g. delivery, transitional, benefit and resource plans) are developed to ensure the effective delivery of the programme.
• Analyse interfaces and dependencies between projects and recommend appropriate action where anomalies exist or there are areas of concern.
• Review programme and project/workstream plans against Business as Usual plans to ensure that change can be adopted effectively.
• Establish and operate mechanisms to track programme or project/workstream delivery against the plan and ensure progress updates are reported against the plan.
• Ensure project Managers/ Leads adherence to the programmes Governance, standards, processes, templates as well as ensuring the necessary monitoring and reviews are established.
• Supporting Programme/Project Reporting processes and Programme Boards.
• Actively manage equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenge unacceptable behaviour.
• Support the University’s sustainability agenda through resource-efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Advanced level of knowledge and experience of Microsoft Project.
• Prince2 qualifications.
• Proven ability in the management of projects from inception to successful implementation, including the development of project plans, and the management of budgets, resources and timelines.
• Ability to broker relationships with stakeholders at all levels, demonstrating the sensitivities required to balance and resolve the tensions in working with a wide range of contacts (both internally and externally at senior level).
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate at all levels, with both technical and non-technical audiences, and to simplify complex issues and concepts, both through presentations and through clear written documents.
• Proven experience in shaping developments through active participation and leadership of project teams.
• Strong analytical skills with proven experience of solving complex problems.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies and procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify whether decisions will have an adverse impact on a particular group and to take appropriate action.
• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) plus significant relevant practical experience – where no equivalent qualification is held substantial practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly for a variety of audiences, and to produce and analyse source material, information and data.
• Authoritative knowledge of the work practices, processes and procedures relevant to the role, including broader sector/commercial awareness.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.

Informal enquiries to Mary Li, email: m.li@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy.