Project Manager (18-month FTC)

Job Summary

The Project Manager will work within the Examinations team, managing a project to expand capacity in the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) exam. This will entail establishing, managing and completing projects to agreed time, budget and quality criteria by working closely with project sponsors across the College and beyond to ensure scope, deliverables and benefits remain focused and deliver the required outcome.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

Project Management

• Working with the project sponsor and project group to establish and document project deliverables, plans, resources and benefits.
• Through appropriate stakeholder engagement facilitate and lead on the development of the project from high level concept to successful delivery.
• Preparing and maintaining project documents including records as required by the project.
• Facilitate and contribute to project governance structures including steering groups, and boards, and convening, facilitating and managing working groups.
• Sourcing and managing the resources required for successful project delivery, including drafting requirements and seeking quotations, managing tenders, negotiating contracts where relevant and agreeing cross team resourcing (matrix management).

Sector-specific project activity

• Using knowledge and experience of the examinations sector to establish and maintain effective communication with a range of professional stakeholders including the General Dental Council.
• Coordinating the organisation of examiner-specific activity such as recruitment and training to support expanded examination provision, in conjunction with relevant colleagues.
• Coordinating the organisation of examination-specific activity such as question-writing exercises, in conjunction with relevant colleagues.
• Coordinating the procurement of new examination venues for clinical and practical examinations, in conjunction with relevant colleagues.

Communication

• Undertaking stakeholder mapping and developing full project communication plans.
• Informing and engaging colleagues in the project; acting as a single point of contact for queries.
• Ensuring communication about the project is clear and involves those for whom the project will have an impact; managing interdependencies.
• Contributing to programme management.
• Managing projects and supporting others as determined by line manager.

Implementation

• Managing the operational aspects of projects the role holder is assigned; activities will depend on specific projects but will include working with internal and external stakeholders on some or all of the following: identifying and managing the implementation of system changes; managing external contractors, and overseeing contract implementation; managing, collating and editing contributions from working groups and others.
• Identifying, analysing, recording, managing, resolving and reporting on project risks and issues, presenting options and solutions to senior leadership and project governance groups.
• Adhering to relevant legal requirements and guidelines, policies and procedures, including RCS policies, procedures and Health & Safety requirements.
• Managing stakeholder engagement, including building relationships, and being a trusted advisor and the lead point of contact for a project for both Senior and External stakeholders.
• Having both a breadth and depth of experience and knowledge, and using an analytical approach to, during a project implementation, identify and investigate opportunities for better ways of doing things to improve processes, policies and systems.

Reporting

• Providing regular, timely and accurate status updates and assessments of project performance to internal and external stakeholders.
• Monitoring income and spend against budget, highlighting variances.
• Monitoring and evaluating the project against agreed outcomes, benefits, KPIs and deliverables, highlighting variances to the original project plan.
• Drafting, contributing to and editing briefings, committee papers, reports, presentations and other documents in relation to the project.
• Maintaining engagement with other projects in the portfolio and their dependencies on own areas of work; highlighting potential areas of conflict as early as possible and proposing resolutions.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential: Willingness to undertake agreed project management training with the aim of achieving a recognised qualification.

Desirable: A recognised qualification in project management, e.g. PRINCE2, AGILE, APMP, PMP.

Experience and Skills

Essential: Experience of managing and delivering projects; Familiarity with project management methodologies (e.g. PRINCE2 and Agile) and tools; Experience of engaging with stakeholders at all levels; Experience of the examinations sector or similar high-stakes professional contexts; Knowledge of formal project management methods; Can demonstrate instances of making challenges if information or views appear inaccurate to rectify or increase understanding.

Desirable: Knowledge and experience of managing complex projects; Experience of working in a similar organisation; Experience influencing senior stakeholders; Experience working in a PMO; Experience of working within clinical examinations projects.

Technical Competencies

• High level of attention to detail
• Able to get up to speed quickly and hit the ground running
• The ability to multitask, prioritise and delegate in order to deliver to tight deadlines
• Able to take a cross-organisational perspective
• Able to manage complex projects, and multiple projects simultaneously
• Excellent written skills, including report writing
• A good standard of numeracy, financial budgeting, and working with data
• A confident computer user, including word processing, spreadsheets and use of project planning software
• Strong analytical skills, with experience of using data and evidence to solve problems

People and Interpersonal Skills

• Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to influence and persuade individuals at all levels
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to clearly articulate complex / technical concepts, to identify, summarise and convey the critical points of an argument, and to present to groups at all levels

Values

The post holder will also need to demonstrate the following values:

• Collaboration: We embrace our collective responsibilities working collaboratively and as one college. We work together, using our collective expertise and experience to effect positive change. We are open, honest and transparent, straightforward in our language and actions, acting with sincerity and delivering on our commitments. We take our responsibilities to each other, to patient care and to the environment seriously and we act with this in mind across our work.
• Respect: We value every person we come into contact with at the College as an individual, respect their aspirations and commitments in life, and seek to understand and meet their physical and wellbeing needs. We treat everyone we meet with kindness and integrity and we seek to promote these behaviours in others. We actively seek a range of views and experiences across our work, and we listen to, and make everyone feel, a valued part of the team.
• Excellence: We aspire to excellence and success. We share learning from our experiences, apply feedback into practice, and commit to continual improvement. We work hard to be the best at what we do, recognising and celebrating effort and achievement, and reflecting on our work, so we can learn and improve. We value and invest in research, education and training to drive excellence and put improvements in surgical practice, dentistry and patient care at the heart of our work. We always seek to learn and discover more, valuing knowledge and scientific evidence, basing our decisions on insights, fact and experience.

The [Employer hidden] is an Equal Opportunities Employer. We are open to all talent and we actively ensure that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regards to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.