Position Details

IT Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £45,585 to £54,395 with potential progression once in post to £61,198

Grade: 8

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to November 2025

Closing date: 9th October 2024

‘Open House’ Drop In Session: We will be holding an ‘open house’ drop in session at the University’s Exchange building, in Centenary Square, Birmingham, between 10am and 5pm on Monday 30th September 2024. If you’re interested in working at the University of Birmingham and perhaps have a few questions, this is an opportunity to meet colleagues in the Recruitment team. It will be a relaxed and informal event – you can drop in at any time.

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

Over the next decade, our aspiration is to establish Birmingham in the top 50 of the world’s leading universities. That is a big aspiration, and high-quality digital services and infrastructure are crucial to achieving it. In recognition of that, our Digital Strategy combined with significant investments in technology mean this is an exciting time to join IT Services, ‘making IT happen’ at the University of Birmingham.

We want to attract outstanding, inspirational, and talented people, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success. It is our role to ensure that our community has access to accessible, responsive, resilient, and secure systems and support. What we do enables our students, staff, researchers, visitors, and partners to confidently and creatively use digital services, technology, and data for the benefit of their learning, teaching, research, or work.

The culture of IT Services is one of innovation, collaboration, excellence, and inclusivity, and we apply the principles of customer focus and continuous improvement to everything we do. We have an active People and Culture network, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Women in IT group, bi-annual making IT happen awards recognition programme, and a superb Social Committee which arranges regular activities and events.

This role sits within the Portfolio and Project Management Office which acts as a central University resource providing expertise and support for Professional Services. The Portfolio and Project Management Office is responsible for providing:

• Project governance and portfolio management of projects across IT Services (ITS). Including responsibility for the University’s project management methodology and provision of information, advice, and templates to support effective project management.
• Management of complex, strategic projects in IT Services and across Professional Services.
• Support for Project Managers across the University to deliver projects, particularly those with IT components.
• Demand management, including engaging with departments/teams across IT Services to enable decision-making with regard to resource management.
• Management, guidance, and reporting on financial and procurement activities within IT Services, both at an operational and strategic level.
• A central pool of Scrum Master resource and expertise to support IT Services Products.

Role Summary

Providing comprehensive professional management of projects and programmes across IT Services, Professional Services and Colleges within our University.

You will lead large/complex/multiple University-wide projects, which are of strategic importance, leading the resource/team required to deliver the projects, and being accountable for delivery and for the success of the projects. You will be expected to exercise a substantial degree of independent professional responsibility and discretion, requiring innovation and creativity to succeed.

Coordinating and managing project initiatives and resources across IT Services, developing a high level view across all current and up-coming work, dependencies, resourcing requirements and impacts.

You will be able to work without direct supervision and exercise a high level of discretion and self-motivation, working simultaneously on multiple tasks whilst maintaining a clear focus on project delivery.

Main Duties

Project Delivery 

• Responsible for managing large or multiple projects that may have contributors from multiple areas. This will include some or all of the following:
  • actively manage the day-to-day operational and tactical aspects of multiple projects to mitigate and minimise risk.
  • influence and develop complex project plans and delivery documentation
  • identifying key performance indicators and milestones.
  • creating and maintaining an overall project management plan for the whole project or projects using project management principles and using appropriate software
  • define project scope, goals, deliverables that support business goals and align to project budget
  • identify deliverables, create success criteria, identifying objectives and indicators of success
  • planning, organising and maintaining a regular schedule of project meetings and ensuring sufficient engagement by all relevant parties to the project
  • complete all project administration within ITS project management toolset
  • managing resources to deliver project successfully
  • identify and manage interdependencies across projects, including those outside of remit
  • establish effective networking relationships with all stakeholders
  • managing the budget for the project as required
  • delivering project outputs agreed with senior management, on time, to budget and to the agreed quality standard
  • ensure that priorities are balanced, taking action to deliver agreed deliverables against timelines

Monitoring, evaluation and communication 

• Develop and implement a comprehensive evaluation strategy for the project.
• Establish and implement reporting procedures which meet requirements, and ensure all necessary data is gathered in a timely and efficient manner.
• Analyse data to determine if it is fit for purpose, and take appropriate action to ensure data quality where necessary.
• Develop reporting mechanisms for the project then report on project progress to the project board or equivalent and highlight any risks.
• Maintain a risk register as appropriate, and communicate risks in a timely manner, proactively proposing solutions.
• Engage and communicate with a variety of stakeholders to ensure progress but also to disseminate outputs of the project as appropriate.
• Develop escalation policies and procedures.
• Coordinate the organisation of conferences/ meetings/ workshops/ dissemination events if required.
• Create and deliver communication strategy for the project(s), which may include developing, for example, newsletters, briefings for stakeholders and/or websites or other social media.
• Maintain an up to date knowledge of project management methodologies.
• Identifying continuous improvements to ways of working, processes and policies.
• Source, analyse and develop insights from the data to inform evaluation and review of projects.

People management 

• Manage diverse groups of staff ensuring relevant targets and goals are achieved within resource constraints.
• Create a motivating environment where staff are challenged, developed, encouraged and supported to achieve outstanding results.
• Line Management responsibility including providing guidance, advice, and coordination of their day-to-day activities and performance management.
• Responsible for ensuring all annual review processes, including Performance and Development Reviews are conducted in the service area.
• Identify appropriate opportunities for development and change and encourage other team members to do the same.
• Guide staff through periods of change, communicating a clear and positive vision.

General

• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Relevant degree or relevant equivalent professional qualification, plus significant project management experience (in increasingly large and/or complex projects) or substantial relevant experience evidencing the experience required in this role.
• Formal Project Management qualifications such as APMPPQ, APMPMP, Prince2 or MSP.
• Excellent knowledge of ITIL Service Management.
• Authoritative knowledge of the work practices, processes and procedures relevant to the role, including broader sector/commercial awareness.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly for a variety of audiences, and to produce and analyse source material, information and data.
• Proven ability to meet targets, with minimal supervision to deadlines.
• Substantial experience of engaging, and collaborating, with internal and external stakeholders.
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills that will help to identify and implement improvements and efficiencies across the project or projects you work on.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to influence and negotiate effectively with a range of stakeholders.
• Experience of managing large financial budgets along with experience of budget planning and forecasting.
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the MS Office suite. You should be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
• Excellent people management skills, with proven experience of leading, motivating and managing teams.
• High level of self-motivation and personal accountability with ability to plan and deliver goals to deadlines under pressure.
• Excellent organisational and multi-tasking skills with a methodical approach to work and the ability to prioritise workloads in order to meet deadlines.
• Experience of Service Delivery and transitioning systems into production ready state.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.

Dimensions

Roles at this level provide authoritative professional advice across a range of activities and/or will lead and manage diverse team(s) and resources. You will use your professional skills to resolve problems where the solution is not immediately apparent. Significant evaluation and independent thought is therefore required to resolve ambiguity. You will have wide discretion to decide on direction whilst ensuring activities are broadly consistent with operational policies. You will be able to influence policy through advising on the impact of policy change and implementation in your area of work. You will need to assess the impact of your activities across your area, with related areas and to ensure they fit with the broader objectives of the University.

Planning and Organising

• provide professional expertise, and manage resources and/or a diverse team;
• integrate and co-ordinate work across different parts of the department/university;
• lead and manage staff who are likely to be carrying out diverse duties, and ensure collaborative working to deliver a successful service;
• project manage activities to facilitate major changes;
• develop policy within functional guidelines, and contribute to strategic development within own area;
• be accountable for the quality and professionalism of service delivery, with an appreciation of longer term issues.

Problem Solving and decision making

• anticipate, interpret and assess customer needs, identifying trends, generating original ideas and testing innovative solutions;
• deal with significant people management issues such as change programmes;
• resolve issues which may not have arisen before through use of experience and judgement.

Internal and External relationships

• has an excellent understanding of their own working area and a broad understanding of the contribution other areas make to the success of the University;
• has an excellent understanding of how the University operates, together with an understanding of how academia operates in the UK;
• demonstrates empathy with the academic endeavour and seeks to encourage others to do so;
• use coaching skills to motivate and develop staff;
• proactively and sensitively manage the performance of their team and create a motivating environment;
• influence others (including across the University) to follow a particular course of action;
• represent the department at internal and external meetings/events/network with colleagues in other institutions to share best practice.

Informal enquiries to Margaret Donnison, email: m.donnison@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.