IT Project Manager

Location: Chicago, IL

IT Project Manager

As an IT Project Manager, you will work in close partnership with your Portfolio Manager and your respective IT delivery teams, playing a critical role in overseeing the successful delivery of Portfolios, Products, Programs, and Waterfall Projects within your assigned area of responsibility. You will manage project financials at expected levels of quality and accuracy against their approved budgets, including Forecasting, Accruals, Reconciliation, Amortization, and Capitalization, across all stages of the project lifecycle and while adhering to the standards and controls set by PMO Governance. The IT Portfolio Project Manager role is evolving as client advances on its journey to SAFe agile and remains critical to ensuring delivery success.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Performs a combination of duties in accordance with departmental guidelines:

Project Initiation & Delivery Support:

1. Planview Setup: Ensure all project metadata (such as project owner, start and end dates, milestones, resources etc.) is accurately reflected in Planview and updated, as required.

1. Project Health: Update and track project status (Red, Yellow, Green) provided by the delivery teams. Document and update as require the project risks, issues and dependencies provided by the delivery teams.

1. Contracting & Vendor Management: Support contract approvals, rate corrections and contract tracking in COUPA, working with EPG (Enterprise Procurement), Application Development and vendors.

1. Project Setup & Ongoing Support: Work with Release Train Engineers and Scrum Masters to obtain overall roadmap and PI plan, identifying key milestones to setup tasks and activities in Planview. Attend ongoing agile delivery team meetings/ceremonies to understand and update project health, milestones, risks, mitigation plan and dependencies in Planview.

1. Project Closeout: Work with team to execute project closeout activities in adherence to defined standards and controls.

Financials:

1. Overall Financial Management: Responsible for managing Waterfall project and Agile product financials end-to-end, including budgeting, forecasting, actuals tracking, variance analysis, run rate analysis, accruals, capitalization, invoice reconciliation and payments and ad-hoc financial reports.

1. Budget & Forecast: Ensure baseline budgets are set accurately in Planview; translate approved budget into initial forecast in Planview. Make accurate forecast updates on an ongoing basis as needed.

1. Accruals: Update accruals on an ongoing basis, validate accuracy of accruals, monitor and follow up with vendors on outstanding accruals, and track accruals until payment is received from vendors.

1. Actuals Tracking: Maintain and update actual paid items accurately, track project expenses and ensure adherence to budgetary constraints. Work with vendors to validate expected invoice amount; validate and approve vendor invoices in COUPA, and update Planview and the Paids Tracker for paid invoices.

1. Time Reporting: Update, validate and confirm accuracy of time logging tasks in Planview; follow up with internal and external parties regarding time sheet compliance on a weekly basis. Monitor forecast against actual time trends and investigate questions with appropriate resources (internal and external).

1. Monthly Variance Analysis: Provide detailed monthly variance analysis of forecast against actuals, including investigating and explaining root causes.

1. Reporting & Insights: Respond to ad hoc reporting requests, including providing portfolio financial updates and insights to client and Technology Leadership.

Compliance & Operational Controls:

1. Audit & Compliance: Maintain standards and documentation in adherence with regulatory requirements, SOX/SOC1 requirements, etc. Collaborate with relevant internal (e.g. CPM, Internal Audit, Compliance) and external stakeholders as portfolio point of contact on scheduled & ad hoc cadences.

1. Internal Standards: Responsible for completion and validation of operational controls within area of responsibility. Complete daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual operational controls according to the organization s defined controls framework. Responsibilities include (but not limited to):
   1. Financials checklist
   2. Capitalization checklist
   3. Hardware/Software Tracker
   4. Cash and expense variances
   5. Accrual and placeholder validation
   6. Paids
   7. Coupa submissions and approvals
   8. Review of and action necessary with required financials reports (i.e., RPT01 Reconciliation, RPT01 Exception, Aged Payables, etc.)
   9. Path to Green
   10. Project Attestation
   11. Planview metadata

1. Quality: Adhere to standards, controls and best practices with respect to privacy, data quality, accuracy, reporting, communications, risk management and vendor management.

May perform additional duties as assigned.

Reporting Relationship: Typically Reports to Director or Above

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

1. Understanding of financial management and accounting principles, including forecasting, accruals, reconciliation, amortization, and capitalization.
2. Strong project management skills: ability to manage/support multiple products and projects at the same time, with budgets in excess of $5 million per year.
3. Proficient knowledge of Agile and Waterfall/DevOps/Program Management Lifecycle Methodologies & Standards.
4. Strong knowledge of IT governance and risk management frameworks and compliance requirements.
5. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to work effectively with peers, clients, technology leadership, and subordinates in cross-functional teams.

Education & Experience

1. Typically, a minimum of 5 years experience in IT project management leveraging Agile/LPM practices.
2. PMP and/or SAFe LPM certifications preferred but not required with related hands-on delivery experience.
3. Typically, a minimum of 5 years experience in managing project financials and budgeting
4. Experience using Jira, Confluence, Planview, LucidSpark/Mural and the Microsoft Office suite.
5. Bachelor s or Master s Degree with Master's Degree (preferred), in Computer Science, Information Technology, business, or equivalent work experience.