Job Description

The project administrator is a key member of the DBSS Program team and works directly with the Program PMO to help maintain the project’s goals and objectives; analyze progress reported against the work schedules; and recommend and take action to improve progress.

This is a key role in a small core team of Project Administrators, who collectively will own the Program PMO’s end-to-end understanding of planning detail across the Program and how the various component projects are interacting with each other (in terms of dates and interdependencies).

Your Responsibilities:

As a key contributor within this strategic program, the Project Administrator is responsible for carrying out the following functions, which provide critical input into the project reporting process:

• Maintain the Project Plans. The Project Administrator (as part of a team of Administrators, under the Program PMO) will be responsible for working with Project & Program Managers to perform provided weekly updates of dates and dependencies in the respective MS Project plans that make up the overall end-to-end Program

• Facilitate Project Planning/Control Sessions. Organizing and facilitating team-planning sessions also fall within the realm of the Project Administrator’s role. These sessions may deal with a variety of topics such as planning, supporting definition & maintenance by existing Project PM’s of
• the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• the project schedule
• estimating resource hours and task durations
• supporting issue/risk management
• capturing lessons learned, and
• project reporting.
• The Administrator’s role will be to support the existing Project and Program Managers, who retain ownership and control of their respective plans

• Support the end-to-end Program Schedule. Using Digi project delivery methodology, the Project Administrator assists the DBSS end-to-end Program Director and his PMO team to work with other key members of the team to develop the project schedule, including resource level monitoring and critical path analysis at a project level, and for the overall end-to-end Program. Once baselined, the schedule is used to measure work progress, manage resource assignments, track milestones, and monitor and report on project performance metrics.

• Monitor Progress to Ensure Success. The Project Controller proactively “manages” the schedule to ensure that the project is delivered on time. As part of this responsibility, the project controller must: regularly collect from individual PM’s task statuses and update the schedule; support analysis of any variation or forecasted variation to the plan, emphasizing items such as critical path, slipped tasks, and upcoming tasks; calculate, analyze, and present metrics such as earned value; support management of resource assignments including submitting resource requests, monitoring current allocations, and forecasting future needs; and meet with the Program Director & PMO team to discuss project status.

• Track and Analyze Costs. The Project Controller must work with available tools to track actual costs, including manpower effort, equipment usage, procured resources, etc. He or she must also analyze cost run rates and variations to extrapolate/forecast total costs, as well as report findings to the Program Manager, project office, and any financial oversight governance.

• Manage Issue, Risk and Change Control. The Project Controller ensures that issues, risks, and change requests are identified, analyzed and estimated effectively at a Program (end-to-end) level, so they can be escalated to the appropriate levels of management for disposition, and documented/tracked in the project’s collaboration tool. The project controller monitors issue, risk, and change request resolution dates; contacts team members listed as responsible parties, for status and documentation; offers assistance to responsible parties to facilitate progress and/or resolution meetings; and provides the project manager with the status of open issues, risks, and changes.

• Document and Deliver Status Information. The Project Controller assists the Program Director and the Program PMO in developing the program progress reports and presentation material for executive management.

Your Merits:

• Proven experience in a similar project controller/project support PMO type role with experience working in a matrix environment and managing a variety of stakeholders
• Degree/Diploma level education or relevant professional related qualification
• Minimum 5 years of working experience, preferably within a Telecommunications environment or otherwise in an environment of complex multi-dimensional IT project delivery
• Strong planning and financial budgeting experience
• Expert user of MS Project (both in terms of intelligent structuring of project plans, in in terms of generating Critical Path analysis and other reports in MS Project)
• Good to Expert knowledge of MS Excel, SharePoint and MS Office Suite
• A talent for producing visual representations of data for the purposes of reporting
• Knowledge of finance/controlling processes and tools
• Ability to communicate and influence effectively with stakeholders of all levels
• Highly organized with exceptional attention to detail

• Microsoft Project