Portfolio Planner

**Portfolio Planner - Outside IR35**

Our client is looking for a highly skilled Portfolio Planner to join their team. The preferred office is Edinburgh, however can be based anywhere (must be willing to travel occasionally).

**Skills Required**:
**Project/Programme/Portfolio Planning**

- Set up and embed the planning standards and assurance activities for EFP, working closely with the the client Centre of Excellence (CoE) to drive adherence to standards and help develop the best practice.
- Work with delivery leads, hub leads and project managers to ensure there is clear ownership for the development of high level (1-2) and detailed level (Level 3 or 4) plans within Microsoft Project (or other agreed business tool), ensuring consistency andalignment to standards
- Facilitate planning workshops as appropriate to drive identification of key milestones, the critical path, dependencies, and planning risks and assumptions.
- To develop and manage integrated and/or in-year and multi-year project and resource plans and schedules for the EFP, liaising with internal stakeholders to ensure clear alignment and provide insight to senior leadership
- Work with project and programme managers to ensure that all plans are baselined, and variances can be tracked and clearly explained to justify any change controls or challenge back to ensure delivery within agreed scope
- Provide the appropriate challenge during project/programme plan development to ensure the quality of information is accurate and aligned with the business strategic direction and AOP
- Alignment of AOP budgets across the portfolio and hubs and cost forecasting, liaising with finance and delivery leads to ensure accurate forecasts and adjustments and reported and managed
**Ongoing oversight, Support and Challenge**

- Provide oversight, guidance, challenge and support to project and programme managers on ongoing plan development and plan management, ensuring appropriate governance is effective and remains in place
- Provide challenge to project and programme managers on the quality and content of their plans, ensuring alignment with scope, approach, outcomes, and the business strategy as well as projected resource and cost profiles
**Reporting**

- Create and maintain and present executive-level MI for senior internal and external stakeholders, including, but not limited to, programme / portfolio roadmap, Life Management Board milestone tracker, steering group and board reporting.
- Create and maintain the relevant critical path(s) and other plan outputs to produce MI to inform and advise governance forums as appropriate.
- Create and manage dependency maps that can feed into the wider Portfolio and/or Enterprise dependency map. Ensure intra-project and external dependencies are identified by project managers and agreed and tracked through to completion with the dependentparty. Provide oversight - challenge and validity of dependencies.
- Pre-empt, escalate and / or drive the resolution of risk-issue likely to impact the delivery of portfolio level/integrated plans or the critical path
**Demand Management**

- To impact assess and manage the impact of demand and the change process upon the EF portfolio, to provide analysis and recommendations to the EFP leadership team
- To create and maintain EFP change resource views and requirements to support the in-year and multiyear portfolio plan, ensuring that resource profile is smoothed and right sized, identify any challenges (risks/issues) and possible solutions. Leading regularportfolio plan reviews with stakeholders to ensure resource commitments are maintained, adjusted and impact assessed
**Dependency Management**

- To identify inter/intra hub (and portfolio) dependencies not managed by the CoE, ensuring that donor and recipient projects have the dependency documented and plans are aligned, risks are included in the portfolio RAID and reviewed regularly
- To liaise with the CoE to identify all X-portfolio dependencies, ensuring that donor and recipient projects have the dependency documented and plans are aligned, risks are included in the portfolio RAID and reviewed regularly
**Quality Assurance**

- Undertake quality assurance on the health of project plans, ensuring that planning standards are observed and that plans are developed in line with the the clients methodology.
- Where required, provide development to Project Managers on the use of Microsoft Project for the development and maintenance of complex project and programme plans.
- Capture planning lessons learned, ensuring these are incorporated into planning standards and templates, where appropriate
- Lead and drive corrective action
If interested then please submit your CV.