Project Manager
- Brentford, Greater London (GBR)
- £450 - £550 Per Day
- 6 Months
- Start date: ASAP
- Ref: GSK0JP00087357
- project management
- governance
- healthcare
Project Manager
6 month
Remote / Brentford
Up to £550 per day via umbrella only
Context
GSK has announced that it will separate into two new companies, one that is a leading biopharma company (“New GSK”) and one that will become a leading consumer healthcare company (“New CH”). A two-year separation programme has been launched to deliver the separation of New CH from GSK with the intent to have New CH operationally independent from December 2021 and legal separation in mid 2020.
Within the separation programme, the technology organisation has undertaken analysis to confirm the scope of applications and other technology required to support New CH at and after separation. The technology organisation is now moving into a period of detailed planning for each application, including applications that are currently shared by GSK and CH, and those applications that are used exclusively by CH.
A number of existing applications, shared by Pharma and Consumer Health businesses within GSK, will be replaced by Alternative Solutions for the separated Consumer Health company. There are currently seven such Alternative Solution projects with an additional two expected to be approved. Each project has or will have a small project team accountable for delivering the project to scope, time and budget.
The programme seeks an experienced project/programme manager to provide oversight across these Alternative Solutions, partnering with the dedicated project managers and reporting into the CH Tech Owned Systems lead. This role is initially budgeted for six months to align with detailed planning and the start of separation delivery of the Alternative Solutions projects. The role is likely to be extended through the peak of delivery work and finish around the legal separation (1 Jul 2022).
Responsibilities
The project manager’s duties will include:
1. Build and maintain good working relationships with each Alternative Solution project/programme manager
2. Works with Planning Lead and / or PMO to ensure that the CH Tech Owned Systems workstream is aware of significant risks / issues within the tech function the project manager supports
3. Joins status meetings and additional key meetings related to each Alternative Solution to support the project lead responsible for each project and to ensure sufficient visibility back to the CH Tech Owned Systems lead
4. Adapts to and adheres to the separation programmes’ ways of working and PMO processes
Qualities and Experience
The ideal candidate for these roles will have the following skills/qualities and experience:
• Core project management skills, including but not limited to
o Risk and issue identification and management
o Action identification and tracking
o Understanding of critical path and ability to manage it
o Accurate and concise status reporting
• Excellent communication skills
o Good written and verbal skills suited to fast-paced, professional setting
o Experience and comfort with virtual communication tools such as MS Teams (or similar) online collaboration tools
o Comfortable with and effective at working in virtual teams (i.e. even without the pandemic, many stakeholders are in other timezones around the world)
• General technology understanding
o Previous experience of IT delivery project management a significant plus due to the foundational technology understanding it is likely to have provided
o Existing understanding of or willingness to absorb/learn achronyms / buzz words
o NB - Project managers are not expected to be expert technologists
• Experience working in a large, global programme a significant plus due to resulting experience of fitting into large governance structures and adhering to standardised processes
• Ability to cope with significant levels of uncertainty whilst maintaining forward motion
• Adept at identifying risks / issues that may not yet be recognised and adept at providing support to a project owner who may be concerned about exposing problems within their project or unsure of how to resolve.
• Willing to “roll up sleeves” when required (e.g. to identify the real root cause of a blocker or to assist a resource who is struggling and needs a quick injection of hands-on support)
