Sr IT Project Manager

This is a contract with a great organization. As a contractor for Smith Johnson, you are eligible for medical, dental, life, disability. Smith Johnson pays for 70% of your medical and dental and 100% of life and disability. The contract is also eligible for PTO/holiday accrued monthly. You are also eligible for a 3% retirement matching plan. Smith Johnson believes in taking care of our contractors.

Job Summary

Our client is looking for an experienced Sr. IT Project Manager, local to Utah, and with at least 8 years of experience managing large, complex projects.

The ideal candidate will lead our transition from Informix to a more modern, mainstream database management system hosted with cloud services to enhance our data processing capabilities and support future scalability and performance needs. As an IT Project Manager, you'll lead one or more DevOps Teams responsible for the planning, development, and maintenance of large, complex systems. You'll play a vital part in the overall leadership of the client's Application Development Agile Release Train, collaborating closely with Agency Product Managers, Product Owners, Business Analysts, and other cross-functional technical groups.

This position demands a strong understanding of computer systems, platforms, application development processes, systems analysis, project management practices, and tools. Additionally, exceptional interpersonal, facilitation, and collaboration skills are essential for success in this cross-functional team environment. This role is crucial for ensuring that the client remains competitive and capable of meeting the demands of their customers with efficient, reliable, and scalable database solutions.

We utilize a JAVA-based web platform, and our SDLC process follows the Scaled Agile Framework for enterprises (SAFe) model. The Agencies we support are actively pursuing innovative strategic plans, including a major initiative to modernize their core systems. This is an exciting time to join their team!

Primary Duties:

Manage projects through the entire project life cycle
Facilitate meetings that include stakeholders from multiple levels and functions
Work closely with the customer to capture product requirements/user stories
Create and maintain project plans and documentation throughout the entire project
Maintain ongoing status reports of projects
Monitor project budget including expenditures and projections
Meet and confer with management, users, and contract providers to resolve problems and coordinate services
Actively contribute to problem resolutions; approve system changes and establish project priorities
Coordinates projects and ensures adequate administrative controls, quality, and procedural efficiencies
Sets goals, establishes priorities, manages resources, develops concepts and approaches, reviews project progress and results; and makes project management decisions
Provides technical assistance on agency issues, services, program(s), and/or computer hardware and software, etc.

Responsibilities:

Serve on the Scrum Team managing the Agile Release Train (ART) DevOps teams for the SAFe software development operation
Apply, manage, and adhere to software development practices outlined in key operational documents like the Software Development Methodology (SDLC) Roadmap, Software Development Methodology (SDM), and Software Project Responsibilities and Status Report Instructions
Project Manage assigned projects, facilitate and coordinate with your DevOps team(s).
Leverage provided resources and training to provide system analysis expertise, collaborating with agency business groups, external and/or internal DTS platform or website dev elopment, infrastructure or desktop support groups, and/or contracted vendors, to achieve defined and often innovative IT solutions
Lead assigned Agile DevOps Team(s) and Projects to c nsistently:

Deliver Quarterly plans with a team Program Predictability Measure (PPM) within 80% - 100%
Produce Product specifications aligned with the defined and approved Minimum Viable Product (MVP), including official revisions
Develop Software Applications and/or Features that meet system specifications and standards, including official revisions
Deliver Projects within a single month's variance of the estimated target release date
Create Products that meet DTS and Unit technical, security, and regulatory standards
Maintain consistent, clear, concise, and transparent communication and collaboration with all cross-functional team members and management
Ensure accurate and up-to-date Business Application inventory data

Perform Project Management duties within the ART's SAFe Framework to directly manage the assigned DevOps Team(s), including activities such as:

Creating and maintaining project documentation to ensure project scope and requirements are clearly defined and meet objectives outlined in the project charter
Managing timeboxes, dependencies, ambiguities, and assignments, and providing overall project management
Participating in all SAFe Ceremonies
Ensuring timely Project and Program Increment (PI) preparation and planning activities are completed within the defined SAFe cadence
Orienting and holding project participants and DevOps team members accountable for their roles, responsibilities, and task assignments
Creating, maintaining, and making available project plans and visual aids, including milestones and tasks, to drive project work
Utilizing Jira Software to track and manage all work while maintaining data integrity and making timely updates aligned with SAFe methodology
Generating and distributing monthly status reports for the previous month's work, maintaining a consistent layout with other team reports
Maintaining project status in all project management platforms with monthly updates for the previous month's work
Ensuring accessibility, responsive design, and security standards compliance
Communicating with product owners, product managers, technical staff, and leadership to resolve operational problems
Conducting and skillfully facilitating meetings to achieve objectives and build positive team collaboration
Ensuring development and other task work is assigned, moves smoothly through the SDLC, and progress is frequently tracked against milestone deadlines
Managing and maintaining developer Work-in-Progress limits as defined by SAFe
Managing application test cycles, ensuring they are scheduled, tracked, and issues are escalated and addressed efficiently and timely
Ensuring training efforts are planned, prepared in advance, and delivered on time
Managing Product Delivery, Production Deployment, and Post-Production Support efforts to ensure they are carefully coordinated to conclusion
Staying current with emerging application development technologies, concepts, and practices
Participating on committees addressing and reporting on development activities
Assisting with updating documentation like desk aids, guidelines, and manuals

Required Knowledge/Skills/Abilities (KSA's):

IT Project Management concepts, elements, practices, and tools
Application of Project Management practices in software application development
Understanding of project definitions, scope, objectives, business workflow processes and diagrams, application and database requirements, business functional specifications, design and technical specifications, business and technical standards documents, test case scenarios, and other analysis and design tasks and reports
Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) application me