Project Manager- Chicago, IL- Contract to Hire

Title : Project Manager

3 Months contract to Hire

Chicago,IL

Lead a portfolio of cross-functional projects from discovery through delivery using Agile and waterfall delivery methods. Quickly onboard into new domains, align diverse stakeholders and deliver measurable business outcomes while preparing teams for scale. This role must present confidently to executive leadership, drive cross-functional collaboration, and demonstrate clear potential for future leadership roles.

Responsibilities:

• Manage multiple concurrent projects, tailoring delivery (Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall) to project needs; create and maintain Project Charters and delivery

plans.

• Serve as the primary leader for cross-functional teams define scope, goals, timelines and success criteria; allocate resources and manage budgets, risks

and change.

• Facilitate Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, retrospectives) and coach teams on Agile practices where appropriate.
• Prepare and present concise executive briefings: status, risks, options and recommended decisions; escalate issues with proposed mitigation plans.
• Build and maintain project reporting and dashboards (sprint velocity, milestones, budget, RAID) to provide transparency and support data-driven decisions.
• Demonstrate rapid ramp-up ability: quickly learn business context, elicit stakeholder needs, and begin delivering value within the first 30 60 days.
• Drive cross-functional alignment and influence without authority; resolve conflicts; and maintain continuous stakeholder communication.
• Mentor and develop team members; contribute to continuous improvement of project practices and playbook.
• Manage project close-out, documentation, lessons learned and handover to operations.
• Other duties as assigned. Travel: ~10%.

Skills and Abilities:

• Proven project management: planning, scheduling, resource management, budgeting and change control.
• Agile experience: 3+ years working in Agile/Scrum/kanban environments and the ability to choose and tailor Agile or waterfall approaches.
• Executive presence: experience presenting to senior leaders/C-suite, able to deliver concise recommendations and drive decisions.
• Excellent facilitation and active listening skills; skilled at eliciting requirements, mediating conflict and building consensus.
• Highly organized: exceptional at status reporting, dependency mapping, holding people accountable and project dashboards.
• Tech-savvy: experience with PM Tools, Excel (advanced), and a BI tool (Power BI/Tableau) preferred; comfortable learning new tools.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to lead cross-functional, geographically distributed teams.
• Demonstrated capacity to mentor others and grow into leadership roles.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor s degree
• 5+ years of project management experience, including 3+ years in agile and waterfall delivery.
• Preferred certifications: PMP or PMI-ACP
• Experience with enterprise projects and ability to manage stakeholder relationships across functions and seniority levels.