Programme Manager

Job Description

The purpose of this role is to perform both in a consultative and authoritative style in managing large customer and/or partner implementation projects for a variety of services solutions related to the Rackspace Professional Services consultancy. This position will report directly to the Professional Services Programme Director

You will be working with diverse presales, sales, technical consultancy and service delivery and support teams ensuring Professional Services engagements are scoped, planned and delivered to maximise value for customers and Rackspace. These engagements may include application migration, infrastructure consolidation, transformation, automation, optimization, and lifecycle services.

As an experienced Programme Manager, you will be accountable for the delivery of multiple projects across multiple customers at various phases, both helping to secure new business and delivering against the contracted services and revenue realisation targets. You will ensure that your team remain focused, and you are work closely with resource line managers to manage Racker performance levels.

Key Accountabilities

• Act as first point of contact for assigned customers during delivery. Accountable for all client project / programme communications, conflict resolution, and compliance on client deliverables and revenue.
• Consults with internal teams and customers at all levels within the organization to develop programme and project parameters, including time, resource, dependencies, and cost estimates.
• Accountable for programme and project management deliverables including the project plan, project schedule, status reports, meeting minutes, issue logs and any other documentation related to the management and administration of the project.
• Accountable for ensuring projects remain on schedule and budget at all times; ensuring timely customer milestone completion and Rackspace revenue realisation.
• Lead the entire programme and relative project managers that report into that function. Represent Rackspace on customer project boards.
• Lead the effort to find creative approaches to problem solving and quality deliverables supporting business needs and processes.
• When required facilitate project meetings focused on status reporting, problem resolution, feedback, fostering open communication within the team on project planning and execution.
• Works closely with account managers and service delivery, providing regular two-way communication between the client and team, to provide strong team representation and set proper client expectations.
• Tracks and reports on consulting hours and travel as outlined per contract and departmental policy.
• Provide FANATICAL support by ensuring 100% customer satisfaction for all Rackspace Professional Services engagements.
• Orchestrate and lead the professional services elements of a wide range of presales efforts including proposals, RFP/RFI responses and generating Statements of Work (SoW) as the means to help customers realise the value of Rackspace.
• Lead / contribute to opportunity qualification for complex migration, transition and transformation projects.
• Work closely and cohesively as part of a cross functional pre-sales team, ensuring realistic, innovative sound commercial and technical solutions to meet customer objectives and expectations in a timely manner.
• Lead commercial negotiations for professional services SoWs with Customers, with values typically between £50k - £2m.
• Produce, effort, cost and price models to support proposals.
• Lead / contribute to partner selection and on boarding to support pre-sales and project efforts.
• Manage partner performance through project delivery.
• Seen as a thought leader / key contributor to Professional Services & Partner commercial modelling amongst internal teams.

Experience

• Industry or related professional services delivery, implementation, leadership, partner and / or account management experience.
• Demonstrated success of leading a programme and managing people in a customer facing role.
• Advanced knowledge of service management and project delivery methodologies.
• Strong understanding of IT managed services and reasonable technical competency with the ability to learn and apply new technologies.
• Expert knowledge of business operations across various industries.
• Organization, communications (including presentation skills, diplomacy, and influencing), process thinking, directing work through others, initiative, building relationships and trust, and consensus building.
• Knowledge of industry metrics and how to positively impact those figures by identifying them in customer and market interactions.
• Experience interfacing with clients at all levels and managing client expectations.
• Demonstrated competency such as impact & influence, enabling change, program management, customer focus, strategic thinking, creativity, and drive for results.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity by making the appropriate decisions considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions.
• Ability to prioritize effectively and handle shifting priorities.
• Proven ability to motivate responsible parties to ensure project timelines and deliverables are met.
• Proficiency in using enterprise project portfolio management applications such as Microsoft Project and Office applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience is required.
• PRINCE2, Managing Successful Programmes, or equivalent certifications preferred.
• Ability to travel as required