SENIOR MANAGER, STRATEGIC IT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

At McMaster University, our people are our most valuable asset. We strive to attract, develop, and retain talented faculty and staff, and to foster inclusive excellence which values the strengths, perspectives, and contributions of each individual. McMaster’s profile and stature has evolved to one of the Top 70 Universities in the World and we are recognized as Canada’s Most Research Intensive University. McMaster is also recognized as one of the top employers in the Hamilton/Niagara region and has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top Diversity employers in each of 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (AVP and CTO) is responsible for developing and stewarding both IT Strategy and IT Governance across McMaster’s campus(es) while simultaneously executing an IT service delivery model to meet the unique technological and digital needs of the Faculties, departments, instructors, researchers, staff, and students. The AVP and CTO recognizes that McMaster employees are our most valuable assets and we are strongly committed to promoting an engaged, healthy and versatile workforce.

About the Position

Working closely with the AVP and CTO, and the Associate Director Strategic Implementations, the Senior Manager, Strategic IT Portfolio Management will be responsible for the initiation, prioritization and delivery lifecycle of projects specifically tied to initiatives related to the McMaster IT Strategic Vision. 

Working with the Associate Director Strategic Implementations, the Senior Manager will help design and implement a new McMaster IT consultation service to support the McMaster community in navigating and aligning distributed IT initiatives and projects.

Job Summary

The Senior Manager will ensure that a full and robust project analysis framework and processes are undertaken, including the successful initial technical review, strategic alignment, project feasibility and resource needs are assessed for all new projects and will be responsible for the implementation and change management associated with the Project Intake process. The Senior Manager will need to engage sponsors and stakeholders the Intake process, how it integrates with University Technology Services (UTS) and McMaster IT operational pipeline planning and the IT Governance Framework, and coordinate and manage the assignment of resources, aligning this with service level agreements and Memorandums of Agreement for Business Analysts and Project Managers allocated to initiatives across campus 
“Strategic IT Portfolio Management is the selection and prioritization of programs and projects, including aligning resource demand with resource availability to achieve a set of strategic goals.”1 Taking a Strategic IT Portfolio approach will enable the AVP and CTO Office, UTS and McMaster IT to manage institutional value by aligning projects with the institution’s strategic direction, making the best use of limited resources, and building synergies between projects. With support from the Associate Director, the Senior Manager, Strategic IT Portfolio Management will take a continuous improvement approach to the intake process to support the AVP and CTO and the CTO Executive team and IT Governance with prioritization and resource planning across all projects in the project pipeline. 
1 https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/strategic-portfolio-management-strategy-results-8111

The Senior Manager, Strategic IT Portfolio Management will manage and monitor the portfolio and provide regular updates to the AVP and CTO and the CTO Executive, managing the risks and issues at a portfolio level, identifying where a strategic approach may be required. Information about the overall Strategic IT Portfolio, including the UTS Portfolio, will be shared semesterly with the IT Governance committees for awareness. The Senior Manager, Strategic IT Portfolio Management will join the Associate Director to meet regularly with campus partners to understand upcoming project priorities to support UTS and McMaster IT in the planning of resource requirements. 

There will be a significant focus on managing project managers (PM) and Business Analysts (BA) and their assignment to the project pipeline, including the management and monitoring the critical success factors for all active projects.  

Management Responsibilities

• Responsible for leading the Strategic IT Portfolio management team of Project Managers and Business Analysts, including recruitment, project resource allocation, on boarding, coaching and mentoring to ensure a highly motivated and technically competent team, contract renewal and extension, in conjunction with the Associate Director Strategic Implementations
• Strategic IT Portfolio Framework implementation and review, which will include facilitation of and input from UTS Project Managers and Business Analysts, campus stakeholders who have worked with the team,, reviewing processes and tools used to help rollout of tools.
• Responsible for planning, coordinating, and scheduling work assignments to ensure the completion of assigned projects.
• Remain current with relevant project methodologies.
• Remain current with security policies and procedures and work with Information Security Team to implement security changes and how this integrates with the Intake processes.
• Promote the use of the Project Management framework, identifying enhancements and process improvements based on lessons learned. 
• Conduct regular reviews of project deliverables to provide feedback to Project Managers and Business Analysts, and to identify opportunities for process improvement. 

Project and Program Intake

• Work with campus stakeholders to prioritize project impact, outcome criteria, and metrics. 
• Responsible for project intake process execution including recommending and implementing continuous improvements. 
• Collect relevant data, research best practices and trends, and obtain relevant feedback from internal and external stakeholders. 
• Develop and implement a project intake scorecard to evaluate alignment with McMaster vision and goals, and to determine complexity and resource needs. 
• Manage aspects of project and program intake for UTS, including planning and assigning the appropriate resources to facilitate the appropriate technical reviews (including cybersecurity), working with the appropriate teams in UTS
• Lead walkthroughs and reviews of new project proposals, high-level plan, technical reviews and resource planning. 
• Work with the Associate Director Strategic Implementations to develop executive level communication to support sponsors and project stakeholders as part of the project initiation stage, in order for these to be  reviewed,endorsed and  prioritized by the CTO Executive Team and the IT Governance frameowrk. 
• Conduct campus client interviews to determine scope, priority and constraints of business needs.
• Monitor intake channels and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to manage expectations with project sponsors. 

Analysis and Solution Definition

• Facilitate large group information / requirement gathering sessions for the purpose of developing high level project scope documents for technical review and project prioritization.  
• Work closely with campus stakeholders to determine business requirements, eliciting requirements through interviews, document analysis, workshops, surveys, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, and task and work flow analysis to define project scope required to evaluate the size, complexity and resource planning. 
• Conduct or coordinate in-depth Interviews with project sponsors to gather their user requirements, identify potential strengths and weaknesses of current solution and environment (SWAT analysis).
• Facilitate Technical Reviews, incorporating sunject matter experts as necessary, to provide and recommend solutions along with resource requirements.
• Develop and document project scope  according to standard templates, using natural language. Document business process descriptions and analysis including business rules and workflow. Write business cases, and IT Governance proposals, as required.
• May be asked to plan and facilitate business requirements gathering sessions for project teams, to support open and unbiases conversations, especially around issues that may be perceived as contentious. 

Manage Campus relationships specific to Portfolio Management

• Working with the Associate Director Strategic Implementations to build and manage relationships with key partners across McMaster to understand project priorities
• Working with the appropriate UTS and other McMaster IT Managers to manage project resource capacity planning for istaff based on the IT Governance and UTSproject pipeline. 
• Investigate, evaluate, and recommend improvements that may be required to business practices, their applications systems, and supporting computing technology.

Strategic IT Portfolio Management Oversight

• Working with the Associate Director Strategic Implementations, the Senior Manager to design, implement, and integrate a new McMaster IT consultation service to support the McMaster community in navigating and aligning distributed IT initiatives and projects
• Working with the appropriate Project Managers, Operational Managers and Project Sponsors to ensure projects are tracked 
  • projects are entered with relevant information - including tracking down missing information from appropriate parties
  • projects are maintained with relevant status and updates
  • projects are marshalled through the workflow in alignment with the portfolio cycle phase they reside
  • following up with project managers, functional and IT owners to get status updates for senior/executive leadership
• Development of reports that summarize the portfolio or components of the portfolio (sub-portfolios or programs) to be consumed by key stakeholders, local, senior and/or executive leaders
• Development of reports specific to the support of the IT Governance decision making including scorecard matrices, capacity availability, etc.
• Develop, and maintains project management standards and procedures
• Manage the portfolio management process, to ensure that it runs effectively and smoothly.
• Develop a structure to evaluate, authorize, and monitor projects as they pass through the project lifecycle.

Perform ongoing research to maintain up-to-date knowledge of best practices, trends, and resources as applicable to the strategic needs of University Technology Services project management framework: 

• Identify learnings, and share knowledge by acting as a resource to the IT Strategic Implementation Team
• Identify and interview appropriate stakeholders and develop tools (i.e. questionnaires) to expedite sharing of information; and assess, analyze and present results. 
• Prepare briefing materials for senior management based on research, analysis of information and data from internal and external sources that are aligned with the strategic direction. 

Oversee communication and change initiatives related to projects. Act as a resource person, liaison, and communicator: 

• Keep stakeholders informed of projects moving through the Intake process, and projects where resources have not yet been assigned. Prepare and deliver presentations to UTS leadership team. 
• Coordinate the flow of information and direct data appropriately. 
• Review and analyze reports, and other sources of information and compose related correspondence and documents. 
• Ensure information is accessible to others 
• Act as contact person and collect, format, and disseminate information to others ensuring information is clear, correct and in a form suitable to its intended audience. 
• Determine what information should be distributed, to whom, and in what format.