Description
Program Planner – Role and Responsibilities"A Program is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits and control NOT available from managing them individually.” (PMI)
Previous Experience
• Working in a Program Office environment
• Creating/maintaining complex Program Plans
• Managing projects
Required Competences
• Planning – Able to create and monitor complex integrated program plans ensuring dependencies (internal/external to the program) are identified and effectively managed.
• Risk Management – Able to support Program/Project Managers with risk identification/control and administer the Program’s Risk Register.
• Issue Management – Able to support the Program Manager in identifying Issues that threaten the Program and administer the Program’s Issue Register.
• Change Management – Supports the Program Manager by ensuring that changes to the Program are controlled and managed effectively.
• Stakeholder Management – Supports the Program Manager by ensuring stakeholders have been correctly identified and that their communication needs are met.
• Information Management – Able to manage complex data flows and ensure that the required information management systems maintain the safety and integrity of the Program’s data.
Tools
• MS Office
o Excel – advanced skills required
o MS Project – advanced skills required
• Sharepoint *
• P360*
*Training will be delivered for these tools
Responsibilities
Responsible for the integrated planning and monitoring of the program and its projects.
• Creates a master Integrated Program Plan, rolling up the project plans and program level activities into an accurate timeline.
o Identifies and tracks inter-project dependencies.
o Creates a Resource Plan (Who is doing what), including roles descriptions.
o Continuously updates the plan based on project planning changes.
o Creates expectations for review points based on program milestones.
• Contributes to proposal and planning documentation, including the Program Contract (Blueprint), (possibly, a Program Governance Project Contract) and Business Case)
o Ensures that Business Case and Integrated Plan are well informed by constraints and that planning or case-making assumptions are documented.
• Drafts Project Contracts and works with Project Managers to tie contracts back to plans and back to the master Integrated Program Plan.
• Performs general document management duties to assure that the program’s Shareroom site and the project sites are maintained, including versioning, ongoing content management for “living” documents and access controls are working to the Program Manager’s specifications.
• Administers the program’s Action/Issue Log, which tracks the program related tasks. If necessary, runs the Program Governance Project, which is the track of program management costs and work items that are not associated with the program’s child projects.
• Tracks program team membership in a Program Organization Chart. This includes project resources as well as business client members.
• Sets up and coordinates planning and status meetings.
o Takes Meeting Minutes, insures action items are assigned .
• Sets up and coordinates Steering Committee meetings.
o Prepares Program Manager for Steering Committee reporting.
o Takes Meeting Minutes, insures that decisions are clear and that the Steering Committee is effectively involved in risk management.
• Quality assures P360 data is correct and the system is used effectively by the Project Managers.
o Ensures portfolio reports are accurate and up-to-date for PRBs.
o Tracks the actuals coming over from the finance systems. Escalates issues.
o Aids with learning and resolving region-specific budget management procedures.
• Maintains the program’s Risk Register and roles up appropriate project risks. Participates in communication and risk mitigation.
• Creates and executes Change Requests.
• Works with Communications Lead to insure all key stakeholders are informed of planning topics such as milestones, changes, risks, etc. Contributes to Stakeholder Analysis by informing it with the Program Organization Chart.
• Facilitates Project Closures, including confirmation that documentation is completed and Changepoint entries are processed correctly.