The PMO Is Responsible for Providing Credible, Accurate and Timely Information to the Business

BBC JOB SPECIFICATION

Job Title: Portfolio Management Office (PMO) Manager Base: London Grade: 9D Start Date: ASAP Contract: 12 month attachment or Fixed Term Contract

Context The Television PMO works within BBC TV to understand the challenges being faced by the division and to support, assure and enable the delivery of solutions needed to keep BBC TV originating great content today and in the future. As ambassadors for change, we align and manage the collective transformation challenges that the Division faces, helping to drive and deliver change in alignment with TV’s objectives.

The Portfolio Management Office (PMO) currently sits within Business Operations and is responsible for providing credible, accurate and timely information to the business and project stakeholders by way of a number of reports. The PMO also provides challenge to the projects and the managers that sit in the portfolio. Part of their role would be to drive development of project capability within the PMO and wider business.

Purpose of the role The PMO Manager is responsible to the Portfolio Manager/ Programme Manager for the development and rollout of PMO processes and strategies that support and enable delivery of major programmes and projects.

The PMO Manager will be required to Manager on specific work/best practice across the project and change teams to enhance reputation and effective delivery

Key Responsibilities Reporting Delivery of PMO reporting across the Vision Portfolio. This is achieved with support from other members of the PMO; by delegating tasks and challenging project managers to ensure that their reporting is credible and accurate, and where necessary, providing advice on how to interpret and communicate often sensitive and political situations. The Manager is responsible for the timely delivery and quality of the reports to senior stakeholders around the BBC.

The PMO Manager analyses information from across TV’s Portfolio, interprets it, providing commentary and identifies risks and issues to be escalated to the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager. The PMO Manager is responsible for compiling this information in a reporting pack for presentation at appropriate governance Boards.

The PMO Manager is responsible for the accurate and timely production of TV’s DQF reporting submissions

1 Interpreting and analysing data The PMO Manager is responsible for analysing the information captured within the risk and issue tracking tool, identifying potential problems, trends, commonalities and dependencies and recommending possible solutions, providing a clear picture of the Programme risk profile and escalating to the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager.

Support to the Portfolio Manager/Programme Manager The PMO Manager has delegated authority from the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager to represent the team at high level project planning meetings and project stage reviews with senior stakeholders.

The PMO Manager supports the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager by identifying risks and concerns and assists with strategic pieces of work when required.

Discrete projects The PMO Manager may be required to Manager on discrete project activities, usually of a sensitive or highly political nature. These will be agreed by the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager and may involve scoping activity, analysis of a situation, implementation or providing possible solutions to resolve a particular problem.

Guidance, Advice, Support to Project or Programme Managers The PMO Manager will have significant project management experience, in order to provide guidance, advice and support to project managers at any point within a project lifecycle. The PMO Manager will undertake activities such as providing specialist knowledge in project management including project structures, management of risks, issues, project planning, dependencies, benefits and milestone capture, reporting, stakeholder management, communications strategies.

Embedding processes and developing capability The PMO Manager is required to support the development of project management capabilities within TV PMO and where needed across TV’s wider business. They will have a robust understanding of project disciplines and are able to provide the relevant expertise to ensure consistency and excellence of approach is adopted by the project managers and embedded acrossTV’s Portfolio.

The PMO Manager will be responsible for managing project initiation and closure processes across TV’s portfolio

Developing process The PMO Manager will be required to develop, maintain and own a dependencies tracking and reporting mechanism to cover the intra dependencies across TV’s Portfolio and inter dependencies with other programmes

2 Risk Cuts The PMO Manager will be expected to Manager on risk cuts across the TV’s Portfolio. This involves taking views and opinions from senior stakeholders and project personnel either individually or by engaging in and facilitating collaborative problem-solving, to understand the current situation, analysing the information, quantifying ambiguity and assessing and commenting on the current controls and mitigation and providing recommendations and solutions required to resolve or take the situation forward. The information is presented in a summarised, cohesive manner, enabling senior management to make informed decisions.

Assurance The PMO Manager will undertake assurance activities across the TV’s Portfolio. They will assess all aspects of the projects’ ‘health’ and evaluate the projects ability to deliver, and identify an informed set of recommendations or observations to either the Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager / Project Sponsor which informs the ongoing approach of the project and the necessary resource of the project to deliver a successful outcome.

The PMO Manager will Manager and work with the BBC PMO to collate information to produce for reviews by BBC Internal Audit or National Audit Office as appropriate

Best practice The PMO Manager provides a conduit for information and best practice sharing between the TV’s Portfolio, the BBC PMO and the wider PMO community. They will research best practice project management approaches from elsewhere in the BBC and wider industry.

The PMO Manager will manage the portfolio management infrastructure in such a way to be able to provide information to the Portfolio Manager / Programme manager to enable Managerers to make effective and appropriate decisions about the content and direction of the team’s delivery.

HR responsibilities The PMO Manager will provide mentoring and coaching to a number of staff as required by the Programme Manager, and specifically development of junior staff within the PMO on project management capability.

The PMO Manager will be required to provide line management to some junior staff.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience Essential  Demonstrable contribution to managing projects and business change, considering the process, people and technical elements  Good knowledge of project life cycle and structured project methodologies  Experience of different governance structures and all aspects of project management eg risk and issue management, planning, communication strategies etc.  Proven ability to work with ambiguity

3  Able to demonstrate experience in identifying potential sources of risk and their impact on project success  Experience of complex problem-solving and opportunity identification  Proven experience of planning, monitoring, reporting and delivering benefits  Proven ability in writing papers for senior audiences to a high standard  Strong communication skills  Ability to work flexibly and across conventional boundaries within a team.  Proven ability to Manager engagement with stakeholders at all levels and to influence others through the presentation of sound and reasoned arguments  Experience in using a range of applications including Microsoft Office.

Desired  Experience delivering projects in a BBC environment or in a similar media organisation  A recognised project management qualification

Competencies Planning & Organising  Able to juggle priorities and can concentrate on several areas of work at one time.  Is able to think ahead in order to establish an efficient and appropriate course of action for self and others.  Prioritises and plans project / programmes taking into account the degree of uncertainty, resource availability and inter project dependencies to ensure delivery within the time, cost and quality constraints.

Managerership  Demonstrates the ability to make things happen and is focused on the project / programme delivery.  Builds a climate of trust with project or programme teams and all other stakeholders.  Ensures project issues, conflicts and dependencies are fully identified and appropriately resolved, escalating where required.

Collaborative working & Managing Relationships  Experience of developing successful working relationships with a wide range of individuals and organisations, including contact at a senior / executive level.  Recognises the importance of sharing and disseminating information and contacts.  Takes care and time to maintain and develop existing relationships.  Is aware of, and shows understanding and respect for, other people’s needs and actions. Values individual differences. Actively provides opportunities for others to participate in group situations. Has an ability to establish rapport quickly and effectively with new clients / people.

Resilience

4  High levels of self-motivation, with the ability to work on own initiative.  Demonstrates an approach to work that is characterised by commitment, motivation and enthusiasm. Maintains personal effectiveness by managing own emotions in the face of pressure, set backs or when dealing with provocative situations.

Flexibility and adaptability  A willingness to be flexible in meeting the challenge of working across a diverse range of delivery teams.  To manage uncertainty and adapt the programme, portfolio or project where required.

Communication  The ability to get messages clearly understood by adopting a range of styles, tools and techniques appropriate to the audience and the nature of the information.  Makes communication timely and regular. Checks for understanding.  Listens, encourages discussion and two-way communication.

Influencing, Persuading and Negotiating skills  Ability to present sound and well-reasoned arguments to convince others.  Demonstrates the ability to draw from a range of influencing strategies to persuade people to achieve agreement or behavioural change.  Listens to other points of view to gain understanding.

Strategic Thinking  Demonstrates a good understanding of the strategic vision of the BBC and can correlate why the project / programme is required with the BBC strategic direction.  Keeps up-to-date with developments in the outside world and considers challenges in the wider context.

Analytical Thinking  Able to simplify complex problems and processes into component parts, explore and evaluate them systematically. Able to construct frameworks for problem solving and/or development. Able to sift information, select what is significant and identify gaps. Can interpret and evaluate information from a range of sources and in a variety of formats

Creative Thinking  Able to transform creative ideas into practical reality. Can look at existing situations and problems in novel ways and come up with creative solutions.