Project and programme Controls Lead

Job Description

We have a current opportunity for a Project and programme Controls Lead on a contract basis. The position will be based in Abingdon. For further information about this position please apply.

Overall Purpose:

• Responsible for developing and measuring against baselines agreed with stakeholders and senior programme staff.
• Orchestrating the development of complex project plans and resource forecasts, identifying optimisations in future work sequencing and resource management;
• Advising and influencing project managers and senior staff as a technical expert in the field of project planning, particularly with respect to specific acute project issues and a strategic look ahead;
• Responsible for leading and delivering the planning on one or more key programme areas;
• Uphold and enforce project management processes, planning procedures and protocols. Be responsible for ensuring that planning procedures and protocols are followed by all members of the team.

Accountabilities:

• Responsible for leading and delivering project planning on the largest (>£30M) programme areas at UKAEA to a format, update / forecasting frequency and overhead agreed with the customer
• Drawing on expertise and experience to shape plan structures and monitoring methods
• Autonomous ability to find solutions to planning problems, and influence project managers in developing ameliorating response plans
• Ability to effectively liaise with the project team in the field to quantify progress, identify areas of underproductivity and trends in project performance
• Excellent ability to understand and synthesize technical information into a project plan;
• To develop critical path and options analysis, influencing execution strategy formation on large programmes;
• Liaise with external parties / customers on planning matters, ensuring project compliance and timely information flow;
• Peer reviewing planning work undertaken by others in the planning and wider project team to ensure that it is of an approach that suits the project, is of a consistent standard and adheres to planning protocol as set by the PMO;
• Assist in the development of standard plan structures and protocols for different levels of plan complexity, to be used by other planning team members;
• Identify opportunities for improvement and, using expertise and knowledge, propose solutions to problems and challenges;
• Promote the right culture to encourage good project management practices.
• Implementation of best practice project management processes, particularly with respect to planning and resource management within an engineering environment;
• Provide strategy input to project and programme managers and staff in developing activity sequences, identifying key interdependencies and optimisations to reduce overall time, whilst adhering to planning protocol;
• Advising and assisting project managers with the creation and implementation of work breakdown structures and work allocation;
• Creating baseline plans using a pre-agreed scope of works and monitoring the progress of projects against this baseline, alerting the PM to potential changes or deviations;
• Collecting, checking and supplying earned value data to the project manager, taking responsibility for the quality of data supplied;
• Making comparisons between baselined total costs, actual costs and calculating forecasts. Providing analysis of the data provided.
• Monitoring and enforcing change control with respect to the plan;
• Collate actual durations for completed tasks to inform the planning of similar future tasks;
• To design reports to suit the needs of the Authority, senior managers and project managers and to provide these reports when required;
• Communicating with a wide range of staff including design engineers, drawing staff, procurement staff and technicians to plan and monitor projects;

Additional Duties (if required)

• Lead the design and support the implementation of a Performance Measurement Baseline across major projects and programmes, working alongside technical, project management and project controls personnel
• Support with schedule risk analysis (if trained on PRA)

Specific qualifications/experience

• An in-depth experience in the implementation and thorough execution of project management processes and project planning in the context of large and complex projects;
• An approachable person with excellent inter-personal skills able to seamlessly interact with people in all corners of the project
• Ability to skilfully engage with people at all levels of the project to efficiently glean productivity information and identify trends
• A good understanding of technical control processes;
• Highly experienced in the use of Primavera with a working knowledge of Microsoft planning software;
• Project management qualification preferred;
• Degree or equivalent in engineering, physical sciences or related subject.

Rullion celebrates and supports diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for both employees and applicants.