Title : Project Manager- Solution Delivery PMO 

GCL: D3

Science & Enabling Units IT Background

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious diseases. But we're more than one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca, we're proud to have a unique workplace culture that inspires innovation and collaboration. Here, employees are empowered to express diverse perspectives - and are made to feel valued, energized and rewarded for their ideas and creativity.

Headquartered in Cambridge (LSE listed), with operations in over 100 countries, AstraZeneca PLC (AstraZeneca) was formed in 1999 when Astra AB of Sweden merged with Zeneca Group PLC of the UK. The merger produced one of the world's largest biopharmaceutical companies with a market capitalisation today of ~£65 billion, annual revenues in 2016 in excess of $23 billion and over 50,000 employees worldwide (46% in Europe, 28% in the Americas and 26.5% in Asia-Pacific).

Science and Enabling Units IT (S & EU IT) actively partners with its business stakeholders to deliver cutting-edge IT capabilities to deliver on life changing therapies to patients. The ambition of S & EU IT is to provide world-class expertise and leadership in technological solutions, BI Analytics and Information Delivery that empowers our R&D Science Teams, our Medical teams in the field, informs the strategy for global product teams and accelerates and improves Financial and strategic decision making for a diverse set of senior leaders.

The Solution Delivery (SD) function provides the business with an in house project delivery, business analysis and software engineering capability utilising both S&EU IT technical teams in our global technology centres, the central software shared services capability and external 3rd party suppliers and contractors. The PMO is responsible for managing the department’s entire project portfolio and the resources used to meet the demand for business change within the portfolio.

The PMO vision is to provide S&EU IT with a first class PMO service to help drive and support Delivery Excellence across the Project, Programme  and Resource portfolio. To deliver this vision the PMO operates five key service areas to support Delivery excellence; Portfolio process management, Project Governance and assurance, Project standards and best practices, Project and Engineering health reporting and KPI metrics, Resource demand and supply management.

The PMO role is a key role required to manage and support the vision and deliver against the key objectives of all aspects of the five key service areas.     

Job Description Summary

Working closely with the S&EU IT capability leads, Business relationship managers, Programme directors and Project Managers and Software engineering leads as well as delivery leads in the global technology centres, the PMO role will help develop and maintain the PMO responsibilities required to drive and support delivery excellence across all areas of solution delivery.

The role will help develop, implement and maintain on a day to day basis the following processes within the operating model;

• Project portfolio management, prioritisation and risk assessment
• Project governance and assurance through planning and management of project control boards
• Project estimating and mobilisation
• Change Management and backlog governance
• Release Management and governance  
• Technical delivery sourcing governance
• Technical resource capacity, demand and supply and utilisation planning
• Project work order management (estimating, capturing actuals and managing project costs)
• Productivity and delivery effectiveness metrics
• Provision of KPI’s and health status for all components of the Solution delivery operating model
• Business Benefit tracking
• Lessons learned knowledge base
• Portfolio status and Financial reporting

Typical Accountabilities

• Manage technical resource utilisation, demand versus supply for all of the current and future project portfolio.
• Assist with preparation of PMO operating model processes, standards and documentation
• Develop and maintain project portfolio resource plans, status reports, financial reports to ensure timely communication and successful delivery of project portfolio.
• Manage portfolio dashboard reporting ensuring accurate status metrics
• Ensure projects are planned and executed in-line with the PMO governance and assurance:
• Ensure deliverables meet required quality standards.
• Ensure project estimates and actuals are captured for entire portfolio helping to build a more reliable and robust project estimating model.  
• Develop and maintain a Communications Plan and keep the business and IT communities appraised of latest developments in the PMO processes.
• Coordination of internal AZ services (e.g. Facilities Management) and external service providers as necessary to meet project timescales.
• To provide PMO support as necessary to Service, Architecture and Data & Analytics Teams.

Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience

Essential

Educational qualification

• A degree equivalent will be preferred.

Skills and Experience

• Excellent verbal English communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Good English writing skills and an eye for high standards and best practices.
• Proactive approach to problem solving.
• Experience working in globally distributed teams.
• Excellent Team Player, with experience in working with cross cultural teams and Senior IT Leadership.
• Hands on experience in
  • Planning artefacts (Estimating models, Project Management planning, Configuration Management plan, Project Scheduling, Resource Planning, Risk & issue Management)
  • Tracking artefacts (MSP, Activity Tracking Sheets, project health  reporting)
  • Resource demand and supply management
  • Financial reporting
• Excellent Excel, PowerPoint skills
• Creation of Portfolio, project, resource status dashboards
• Good Working knowledge of industry leading project portfolio management tools
• Good working knowledge of  Jira and ServiceNow

Desirable

• Min 9+ years project portfolio management / PMO experience.
• Experience working in a PMO within a Global Matrix management environment
• Familiarity with Agile Methodology
• Basic Understanding on SoX concepts
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Project and Service Now  PPM
• It is desirable to have a wider knowledge/understanding of some of the following areas:
• Finance/accountancy
• Procurement
• Project Health Data Analysis

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.