Portfolio Manager

In a nutshell

This role will own the oversight and aggregation of all programmes and technology initiatives that align to a specific Business Portfolio. They will work closely with the Business stakeholders, Product reps and Product Ops to understand the required business outcomes and understand relative priorities. They will work closely with the Heads of Programme Management (Portfolio) and Heads of Delivery (Engineering) to understand progress, risks and share business related impacts of any deviation from plans.

What I am accountable for 

• Accountability for one or more Business change Portfolio.
• Close familiarity with the total scope and live deliveries in your area of technology including programme and initiative dependencies, timelines, plans, key decisions and risks
• Brilliant partnering with other disciplines in the portfolio to maintain a live view of the health of the plan. 
• Acting as a critical friend to the team you work with, putting your judgement to work as the pair of eyes free of the day to day that can spot and raise early any concerns with the total plan.
• The efficient application and embedding of the governance and processes designed in our PMO teams at a local level, working with this team to ensure all activities add value and minimise duplication.
• Contribution to and collation of stakeholder and leadership-friendly updates for your area in collaboration with delivery/programme colleagues and product.
• Supporting the delivery teams to achieve measurable outcomes supporting business priorities and ensuring benefits are realised.
• Understanding the impacts of change programmes and aligning with the Head of Enablement and team to ensure that changes to the business / those impacted are managed seamlessly.

What I need to know 

Essential

• Proven experience in delivering business projects or programmes.
• Experience with managing and resolving problems.
• Highly experienced in stakeholder management.
• Experience of multiple methodologies, hybrid delivery models and agile practices.

Desirable

• Retail Experience.
• Prior line management.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification, PRINCE2 or equivalent qualification.

What I need to show

• Creating a culture of shared ownership for delivery whilst demonstrating personal accountability for business outcomes
• Expertise in fostering cultural change and driving engagement
• A solution-focused mindset with creativity and adaptability
• Excellent communication skills and stakeholder management skills

Our Valued Behaviours are our common DNA that every colleague should live by and provide the benchmark for how we deliver our goals/individual contribution, and how we relate to other colleagues in the organisation.

• Own it
o Do what you say you’ll do
o Don’t walk past a problem

• Make it better 
o Improve things for your customer
o Spot opportunities to simplify 

• Be human 
o Walk in the shoes of your colleagues and customers
o Show care and respect to everyone

In addition to role modelling the Valued Behaviours, all People Managers should be consistently driving all four Leadership Performance Expectations, all the time. The Leadership Performance Expectations are:

Obsessed with the customer
You must:
• Use data and insight to understand customer needs and solve customer problems
• Use our Purpose to support decision making everyday
• Role model living our customer commitments and guide teams to do the same

Obsessed with performance
You must:
• Know and be accountable for your part to play, delivering it brilliantly
• Align team goals and ruthlessly prioritise resources to deliver our Customer Commitments 
• Assign clear accountabilities, hold people accountable (in your team and out) and act on performance both good and bad

Lead beyond boundaries
You must:
• Actively share and seek to understand the big picture, both internal and external
• Story tell our Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy to drive end-to-end thinking 
• Build productive partnership inside and outside our organisation

Lead fearless teams
You must:
• Create the environment for diverse perspective and challenge, where we are always looking to raise the bar
• Grow everyone around you (up, down and across) through adult-to-adult feedback and coaching
• Know yourself (strengths, weaknesses and impact on others) and continuously develop

Support we will provide

• Full system and process training for the role.
• Wider Portfolio team for direction and guidance.
• Access to personal development tools e.g. Bitesize talks, online self-development tools, internal mentoring etc.