Head of Projects and Development at GIBS Business School (Gordon Institute of Business Science)

Key Role

This is a line management role in the IT Division, reporting to the CIO. The position will head up the Project Management Office, which is responsible for analysis, implementation and handover of projects at GIBS, and includes the business analysis and development function for the school. Responsible for ensuring all projects within the portfolio are implemented on time, in budget, whilst maintaining an agile and customer centric approach to change. To assist the CIO with the development, implementation and maintenance of good-practices relating to managing change, with the intention of establishing and managing the school-wide change management capability, and ensuring central control and reporting is in place. Oversight of maintenance of a quality enterprise architecture ensuring quality technical solutions are provided to the school, in conjunction with the other teams in the division. With the CIO, teams and business, identification and implementation of opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the school at all levels. This is a hands-on position. The person should be experienced in software development, development lifecycles, architecture, and ideally have exposure to business analysis.  

Team Culture

GIBS is a fluid and evolving organisation. New requirements arise frequently, and the project team is agile and independent and can respond and execute rapidly to changing business needs.

The team are developers and analysts who are skilled and independent, and generally run their projects themselves. They are strong individuals and have formed a tight agile culture which we wish to maintain to be maintained.  The position advertised is for a person who can hold the middle ground, enabling and developing the team, removing barriers to success, whilst maintaining good governance. They should compliment the team with their own technical skills.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to :

• Primary – Line Management: This role is the point of accountability for the team success. The person should be able to support their team with day to day general management and administration:
• Manage and report on commercials for the team and projects (financials, contracts etc.) for the CIO.
• Leadership and management of staff in this team. Style is critical. The candidate must be people- and customer-centric, with a consultative nature. A big ego or hierarchical management style would not succeed.  
• Responsible for ensuring personal and professional development of this team.
• Ensure appropriate risk management is implemented and reported on.
• Oversee any other administrative work required in the division, including reporting to the CIO or elsewhere as required.
• Project Office. Establish and run the Project Management Office with good-practices for portfolio, programme and project management aligned to GIBS’ culture and business style, including outcomes such as:
• Project management frameworks which map to GIBS’ business style while ensuring required governance principles. 
• Education, support, and supervision of supporting staff in the methodologies.
• Development and maintenance of appropriate documentation and standards relating to every project.
• Reporting as required by all levels of management across all key projects.
• Oversee change management including training of new processes and systems.
• Provision of a supporting “shared service” function to the rest of business to assist with all significant projects.
• Programme Management: Either directly or by working with a resource, take responsibility for key IT projects in line with good project management and governance practices. 
• Enterprise and solution architecture and development: The role should have experience with software development and solution architecture projects and be able to research, assist and / or coach where required.
• The person should be familiar with organisational design and business process design and consult with the whole organisation, with the business analysts (who would be primary in these roles, but more focused on specific work) on opportunities for improvement.
• Secondary: R&D and Innovation. Identify and filter to the CIO any opportunities which may benefit GIBS as an organisation, which the PMO might be able to initiate and execute.

Qualifications and Experience:

• A degree in the IT or equivalent space.
• Line management experience would be beneficial.
• Project management experience specifically in software development projects.
• Business analysis experience would beneficial. 
• Software development experience would be beneficial.
• Business training (e.g. PMD, PDBA)
• Technical experience on business systems would be beneficial, specifically CRM and ERP)
• Experience with data architecture and conversion would be beneficial.

Competencies:

Knowledge and Skills

• Good communication skills.
• Project management
• Business analysis
• Software development exposure
• Training development and execution
• Technical experience - CRM, Content Management, Data architecture
• Technical documentation skills.

Attributes

• Servant leadership. Non-hierarchical management style – supportive, humble.
• Team development attitude
• Customer centricity – The candidate must demonstrate a strong EQ, empathy for customers (staff, internal and external) and have a consultative approach to engagement.
• Ability to work independently as well.
• Structured and self-driven. Does not need reminding or micro-management
• Attention to detail
• Process focused: Must be prepared to design and follow processes repeatedly, but to challenge and to optimise where required.