Project Portfolio Manager Commonwealth Of Massachusetts
Boston, MA

Job Description

About the Organization:

Over 3,000 dedicated Department of Public Health (DPH) staff work at fifteen locations across the state. Responsibilities are diverse: doctors, nurses, and other health providers care for patients at the four public health hospitals. Epidemiologists track diseases and investigate clusters of illness. Inspectors protect the public by enforcing public health laws. Administrators provide guidance to more than 1300 community-based contracts. Laboratory workers identify and track strains of illness across the state. The Department's staff licenses and inspects over 560,000 individuals and facilities.

Our Mission:

The mission of DPH is to prevent illness, injury, and premature death, to assure access to high quality public health and health care services, and to promote wellness and health equity for all people in the Commonwealth. DPH's IT group leads dozens of projects annually. The group leverages data driven insights to shed light on important public health issues such as the opioid epidemic and disease prevention and supports programs such as Women, Infants & Children Nutrition Program (WIC).

About the Role:

The Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used within DPH IT. The entire project management office (PMO) will use the determined processes, technologies, and methods to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The PMO will determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and schedule activities to best achieve the organization's operational and financial goals. This will be completed, while honoring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors.

Responsibilities:

* Liaise with the executive/ senior leaders to create and maintain an operations and project
* Align project goals to achieve the strategic vision and operating architecture; defining the people, processes, tools, and technology
* Coordinate and facilitate the IT Steering Team (governance body for DPH IT)
* Partner with business and technology partners to elicit, analyze, translate, and document business requirements into technical requirements
* Coordinate the project resources to ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget
* Help prioritize and coordinate the appropriate projects and programs
* Ensure everyone is kept up to speed in the project lifecyle and on any escalations/ issues
* Provide managers/ executives with a process to identify potential problems earlier in the project lifecycle; and the visibility to take corrective action before anything impact results
* Ensure informed decisions and governance through bringing together all project collaborators, data points, and processes in a single, integrated solution
* Work to create a unified view of project, program, and portfolio status; achieved within a framework of rigorous control and governance; ensuring all projects consistently adhere to business objectives

Required Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

* 5 years of experience within a PMO environment
* Strong analytical skills; understanding information and business functionality
* Proven ability translating needs of the organization into application or business requirements
* Ability to create compelling business cases with accurate cost and effort estimations
* Excellent understanding of business complexity and project interdependencies
* Skilled in facilitation; an intellectual curiosity and the ability to question partners across functional areas discreetly in document applicable responses
* Strong adaptability; able to adapt quickly to new technologies and change business requirements
* Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
* Proven experience quickly troubleshooting problems as they arise in work or project products
* Ability to partner cross functionally in the organization with people in all types of IT roles, to identify course of resolutions
* Strong understanding of basic system engineering, object-oriented design, data and information system design and risk and security guidelines, and architecture standards
* In depth understanding of the various software development lifecycles (e.g. Agile, RUP, and Waterfall)
* Capable of working independently or as part of a large team; and ability to take on additional responsibilities to assist the PMO office and peers
* Proven prioritization skills

First consideration will be given to those applicants that apply within the first 14 days.

Please see Preferred Qualifications.

An Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer. Females, minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.