Chief Program Management Officer at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/17/514
Location: African
Grade: PL3/4
Position N°: 50084418

The Complex

• The Vice-Presidency, Human Resources and Corporate Services (CHVP) Complex ensures the delivery of efficient, people-centered, client-oriented, corporate services to ensure overall institutional effectiveness in all aspects of the Bank’s corporate services.
• The Complex leads efforts to ensure the competitiveness of the Bank as the employer of choice and is responsible for providing leadership in the formulation and implementation of Bank’s strategies on people, IT, general services and institutional procurements, language services, business continuity, and health and safety strategies.

The Hiring Department/Division

• The Corporate IT Services Department (CHIS) is mandated by the Bank to deliver the best possible IT services for Bank staff, and help achieve the results that will get the Bank closer to accomplishing its development goals.
• The role of the Front Office is to undertake all administrative and financial management aspects of running CHIS on a day-to-day basis, provide secretarial support, and lay down the Governance standards to be used on Programs and Projects undertaken by CHIS.
• It is also responsible for defining and validating project lifecycles, lifecycle checkpoints and ensuring that Program / Project Managers are adhering to them.
• It produces all reporting on project priorities, the management of the CHIS project portfolio and all information for the Information Systems Steering Committee (ISSC).

The Position

• Under the supervision of IT Strategy and Governance Lead, the Chief Program Management officer is Responsible for building and managing the Program Management & Delivery capability for IT.
• The role Define and develop enterprise-wide IT project/program management practices, governance standards, processes and metrics.
• It Ensure projects/programs are defined, tracked and communicated in a consistent and effective manner

Duties and Responsibilities

The key duties and responsibilities of Chief Program Management Office include:

Portfolio/Program Management:

• Define, design, agree and implement an effective solutions delivery capability to ensure timely and cost effective implementation of technology solutions that fully align with business requirements
• Work with CHIS stakeholders to ensure that the Solutions Delivery Road Map reflects current priorities
• Ensure that Program / Project Dependencies are reflected on the Road Map and are under active management at all times
• Ensure that programs and projects are adequately staffed and funded at all times
• Plan, direct and co-ordinate activities to manage inter-related programs and projects across the full project / software development life cycles.

Project Execution:

• Execute projects against the agreed IT Strategy and the agreed Enterprise Architecture
• Lead the Program / Project Managers to deliver professional assignments, staffed with appropriately skilled individuals, delivering to the expectations of CHIS’s customers
• Work closely with CTS and the Service Management Group (SMG) to ensure that the solutions delivered by the programs and projects transition effectively into production and are accepted for ongoing maintenance and production support at the first time of asking
• Ensure that project teams understand and are full able to articulate the impact of their project on adjacent systems, business processes, KPIs and long term impact of technical decisions and ensure high quality implementations are delivered on time and to specifications
• Manage globally distributed teams, including Third Party Vendors and Outsourced Partners to guarantee deliverables to Time, Budget and Quality Objectives.

Performance Management:

• Regularly review service related KPI’s that identify the success of the services being utilized to recommend & coordinate the implementation of changes in services to improve overall metrics
• Design and implements a continuous improvement program which seeks to improve both customer satisfaction and demonstrably improve program, project and Business Analysis metrics year-on-year
• Contribute metrics, variance to agreed tolerances, commentary and explanation to the CIO dashboard / portal
• Routinely produce KPI / OPI reporting on all programs / projects in the portfolio for the ISSC, CHIS’s customers and the CHIS Management Team
• Gather performance feedback from customers as part of the normal course of business; actively participates in a formal “Voice of the Customer” survey at least annually (as part of CHIS)
• Proactively reviews portfolio performance metrics to prevent tolerances from being breeched and out of control situations from occurring.

Portfolio Governance:

• Work with CHIS and the business to define appropriate Program/Project Lifecycle, including the definition of the SDLC and its key gateways, check points and quality criteria
• Ensure that the appropriate development methodology is agreed at the outset of each project and is revised again at the beginning of each project stage / phase (e.g. Waterfall vs. Agile)
• Conduct regular reviews of program and project management methodologies to drive a culture of continuous improvement behaviors
• Conduct regular reviews of program and project progress to ensure that plans are being met and that risks / issues are raised to the Program / Project Management community
• Conduct post implementation and ‘Lessons Learned’ reviews ensuring that the department fully implements any suggested improvements to drive efficiencies and reduce errors.

Stakeholder Management:

• Establish new working relationships as determined by the ISSC and Program / Project governance framework and ensure engagement in the formal creation and initiation of programs, projects and their subsequent execution
• Set and manages expectations with CHIS customers over all aspects of BA work on projects and programs
• Produce clear options for stakeholders with documented pros and cons to enable decisions to be made expediently
• Work closely with the business to ensure that their needs are fully embraced
• Challenge stakeholders to ensure that requirements are adequately thought through, benefit the business and are practical and cost effective to implement
• Provide stakeholders with performance management reporting on all matters pertaining to the project portfolio.

Financial Performance:

• Responsible for achieving the overall benefits of each project undertaken within the budgetary constraints laid down for the project by the ISSC
• Track project spend against agreed CAPEX / OPEX budget allocations, proactively identifying potential over / under spend situations
• Manage Program / Project and Divisional CHIS Budget and Headcount effectively

People Management:

• Work with the CHIS Management Team to ensure that program / project resources are adequately provisioned and skilled on a global basis
• Develop, review, manage, set and measure objectives and motivate team members to successfully accomplish company and personal advancement objectives
• Provide leadership, advice, guidance, coaching and direction to the team members

Selection Criteria

Including desirable skills, knowledge and experience:

• Hold at least a Master's Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related Business fields.
• Have a minimum of Six (6) Years for PL4 and Seven (7) Years for PL3 experience in project/program management, portfolio management methodologies and tools.
• Excellent Program Management skills with 10+ years of running complex business programs which include significant IT components
• Proven track record of software delivery including knowledge of the use of offshore development organizations in a complex, global organization and associated methodologies/processes
• Excellent knowledge of a range of Portfolio / Program / Project / PMO disciplines with particular emphasis on: PMI-PMP (Project Management Institute – Project Management Professional), PRINCE II (Projects In Controlled Environments Version II), MSP (Managing Successfully Program)).
• Excellent knowledge of Portfolio Management & Governance Processes: the sum of knowledge within the  profession of Portfolio Management, including knowledge of proven, traditional practices that are widely applied as well as innovative and advanced practices
• Excellent knowledge of Program / Project Management / Business Analysis Processes: the sum of knowledge within the profession of Program / Project Management, including knowledge of proven, traditional practices that are widely applied as well as innovative and advanced practices. E.g.: PMBOK / BABOK / Certification for PMP / Managing Successful Programs
• Excellent knowledge of Program / Project Risk Management: the identification, assessment and management of project risks, that could result in time or cost over-runs, or failure to deliver products which are fit for purpose
• Excellent knowledge of Commercial Dynamics & Operations: the commercial and financial management dynamics
• Good knowledge of Enterprise Architecture.
• Excellent knowledge with proven experience in Business Process Management: the analysis, design and management of business processes and supporting structures, roles and jobs to achieve the objectives of the business.
• Good leadership and supervision skills
• Team building and conflict resolution skills
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Effective communication skills
• Problem Solving & Decision Making skills
• Ability to communicate effectively (written and oral) in English or French, with a working knowledge of the other.
• Knowledge of the Bank’s standard software: Excel, Word, Power Point, MS Project, Access, etc