Description
Position Summary
The University of Colorado’s (CU) Office for Transformation & Innovation (OTI) works to transform services at the system and campus level to better meet the current and future needs of CU’s students, faculty, and staff. OTI’s primary responsibility, the Transformation & Innovation Program, is a large, complex, multi-year, and multi-faceted program encompassing a series of projects focused around information technology (IT) governance, IT finance, IT talent, technological capabilities, and service management with its Program Management Office (PMO) acting as the central point of coordination for all program activities, governing bodies and stakeholders, change management, and communications.  

The Transformation & Innovation Project Manager's primary role is to manage three to four assigned projects via CU’s project processes and methods. This position ensures appropriate integration with other projects in the overall PMO portfolio, manages and supports projects from conception to finish, and aids in resource management, overall portfolio and project process development, and continuous improvement initiatives. The Project Manager facilitates coordination between customer expectations, project needs, and resource capacity and is accountable for meeting project objectives, managing the project, and ensuring appropriate communication is occurring regarding progress, status, issues, and metrics. The overarching end goal for this position is to aid CU in improved effectiveness and efficiency of services delivered via transparent project execution.

This position reports to the Associate Vice President (AVP) for Transformation & Innovation and is exempt from the State of Colorado Classified System.  This position is funded through June 2023, and may or may not continue after that date. 

Duties and Responsibilities
Duties and responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to: 

Project Initiation

• Creates project proposals with review by the Customer and obtains signoff by the Sponsoring Director 
• Schedules and presents project proposals to the Project Management Review Committee for approval to move onto the Planning phase

Project Planning

• Holds kick-off meeting with the project team for the planning phase
• Defines roles, responsibilities, and stakeholders
• Gathers requirements (with signoff by Customer) and develops, assesses, and selects the proper strategy for the project [systems development life cycle (SDLC) or other]
• Creates appropriate architecture designs and attributes identification with review by Design Review Team
• Creates the initial risk register with beginning risk identification and mitigation
• Develops communication plans reflecting audience, frequency, review by, and execution dates
• Creates required forms and follows procurement process (DQ, RFP, PO, etc.)
• Creates timelines with predecessors, effort, and resources, reflecting requirements, design, risk mitigation, communication, and other items, as identified by planning team; reviews timeline with both project team and Customer
• Prepares and delivers a final presentation to the Project Management Review Committee for approval to move into Execution phase

Project Execution

• Schedules, leads, and facilitates weekly meetings baselined against timeline and updates Project Plan accordingly
• Serves as a mentor and training to project leads across the CU System to aid them in the successful execution of project processes
• Manages project plans; assesses past, current, and upcoming tasks; identifies, tracks, and resolves issues and potential risks; and holds resources accountable for on-time task completion by immediately addressing latency and other issues with the appropriate team member, manager, and/or director
• Controls and monitors project scope within weekly status meetings; sends out status reports per communication plan
• Assesses resource usage weekly within timeline and ensure over allocations are corrected or Director attention is brought to resource assignment if larger portfolio issue exists (resource assigned to multiple projects at same time causing issue)
• Ensures communication plan is being followed with correct resource involvement as defined in the plan, including the delivery of communications to management or appropriate governance committees regarding progress, status, issues, and metrics 
• Updates service level agreements (SLA), as needed or discovered, and obtains SLA signoff
• Reminder on documentation for service as implementation occurs
• Schedule training for Service Desk and others as needed for service roll out and go live

Project Closing

• Coordinates the decommission of services no longer needed post-project (e.g. old servers, databases, etc.)
• Solicits feedback from customers regarding project “lessons learned” to understand if success criteria have been met (i.e. scope and requirements) 
• Holds lessons learned sessions to gather feedback from the project team and managers; creates resulting Lessons Learned documentation

Who we are:

System Administration, which also houses the Office of the President, is located in the uptown neighborhood of Denver with a few smaller offices located on the campuses.  However, this position is located in Denver or may work remotely.  Many of our departments support the educational and research missions of the four University of Colorado campuses, but System Administration is not considered a campus. We provide diverse opportunities for professional development, innovation, and collaboration with talented staff and faculty.  Learn more about CU System Administration.

The University of Colorado has been proactive in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. You can visit our COVID-19 webpage for more information.

What we offer:

Salary: The salary range has been established at $95,000 - $120,000.

The salary of the finalist(s) selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training.

The above salary range (or hiring range) represents the University’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.

Benefits: The University of Colorado offers an excellent benefits package including:

• Medical: Multiple plan options
• Dental: Multiple plan options
• Additional Insurance: Disability, Life, Vision and Wellness
• Retirement 401(a) Plan: Employer contributes 10% of your gross pay
• Paid Time Off: Accruals over the year
  • Vacation Days: 22
  • Sick Days: 15
  • Holiday Days: 10
• Tuition Benefit: System employees have the benefit on all campuses 
• ECO Pass: RTD Bus and light rail service
• Additional Perks & Programs: Click here to access a few more Perks and Programs

Click here to access our Total Compensation Calculator to see what your total rewards could be at CU. This position is a University Staff position.

Additional taxable fringe benefits may be available.

More information on benefits programs, including eligibility, is available at www.cu.edu/employee-services/.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
To be successful in this position, candidates will need the following:

• Knowledge of project and change management processes, principles, and best practices
• Knowledge of the CU environment, including general department structures, business functions, reporting relationships, and operational processes and procedures
• Oral, written, and listening communication skills, including the ability to accurately interpret with others are saying and convey messages, information, concepts, and details clearly
• Collaboration skills, including the ability to work with others from different areas and backgrounds towards a common goal by sharing knowledge and strategy and maintaining constant communication
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to examine data and trends in order to produce results
• Leadership skills, including the ability to persuade others to take particular courses of action 
• Organizational skills, including the ability to set and meet goals and deadlines, manage appointments, create schedules, organize and facilitate meetings, and make decisions 
• Ability to utilize Microsoft Office programs (i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Project, etc.)
• Ability to speak publicly and explain complex or highly technical ideas, concepts, projects, initiatives, and programs in layman’s terms
• Ability to work with a variety of stakeholders from diverse backgrounds, including those in technical and non-technical fields
• Ability to retain and understand a great deal of information in a short period of time
• Ability to serve as a liaison between executive leaders, committees, and staff

Qualifications
Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution of higher education, or equivalent professional experience (professional experience may be substituted for the educational requirement on a year-for-year basis)
• Five (5) years’ professional project management experience, which includes:
  • Utilizing central project management tools, with exposure to workflows, central templates, resource reports, and timeline functionalities 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Seven (7) years’ professional project management experience, which includes the items listed above and: 
  • Resource capacity analysis and management
  • Project management process refinement and implementation
• One (1) year of experience in a team lead or supervisory role, which may include assigning and reviewing the work of others, providing guidance to internal and external team members, and/or assisting management with performance reviews (this requirement may be substituted by formal leadership training)
• Experience working in IT within Higher Education
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification

Job Category: Information Technology
Primary Location: Denver
Schedule: Full-time
Posting Date: Feb 11, 2021
Unposting Date: Ongoing