Portfolio Delivery Partner

This role sits within the Major Projects Portfolio (MPP) as part of the Project Delivery Division (PDD). The team operates as a central project delivery and change management function with strategic oversight of Department for Business, Science, Innovation and Trade (BIST) major projects and project delivery best practice.

This is an exciting time to join the Major Projects Portfolio office, which supports an expanding portfolio of projects and programmes delivering on ministerial priorities, following the department settlement in the Spending Review. The Major Projects Portfolio office plays a vital role in enabling strategic alignment, improving delivery confidence and supporting senior decision-makers with high-quality insights and assurance.

The team also support the projects as Portfolio Delivery Partners (PDP), where we serve as subject matter experts, critical friends, and providing support to help projects to deliver their agreed benefits. We ensure projects are set up for success and help to remove blockers, broker, support and challenge. 

As a PDP you will work across multiple projects and programmes, helping to embed delivery discipline, improve reporting and governance and support project teams in achieving their objectives.

We are looking for a G7 Project Delivery expert. More information about what is required for competency in a G7 Project Delivery role can be found in the Government’s Project Delivery Capability Framework.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Providing expertise to projects, advising and guiding them through the project delivery life cycle and towards successful project completion.
• Challenging project delivery performance, advisingon solutions and ensuring major risks are identified at Group/Departmental level.
• Facilitating solutions to aid project delivery, such as planning, risk, problem-solving and lessons learned sessions and workshops.
• Working with the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) to ensure oversight and appropriate treatment for those projects that are classed as part of the Governments Major Projects Portfolio, including pipeline projects.
• Managing senior level stakeholders and working strategically to identify solutions to complex problems.
• Working across the division to advise, assist and consult, as appropriate, to ensure the business cases and management (delivery) strategies of the Major projects and programmes are robust and set up for success.
• Working alongside other project delivery business partners in ensuring group dependencies are identified and tracked.
• Working to an agreed vision and standard for project delivery, and to champion the use of best practice project planning standards, tools, and processes.
• Building and maintaining external networks to access and further develop technical and professional best practice.
• Working with the other teams within PDD to ensure the best advice and guidance to assist the major projects programmes with delivery, can be achieved.

Essential criteria:

The below criteria are essential and will be assessed at application stage;

• Programme management- Proven experience of programme or project management working across large scale, £MM, complex programmes.
• Working with agility- Able to work within a formal methodology and/or programme management framework yet still provide flexibility and agility to influence, negotiate and assure the evolving needs of the business.
• Communication and Stakeholder Engagement- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with experience of influencing stakeholders.
• Best practice implementation – experience of applying best practice across one or more core Government Project Delivery Capability Framework (PDCF) disciplines, using recognised government standards and guidance such as the Government Functional Standard for Project Delivery and the Teal Book.
• Planning - The ability to define the fundamental components of the work in terms of its scope, deliverables, time scales, resource requirements and budget. It also includes the production of broader plans incorporating risk and quality to provide a consolidated overview of the work.
• Risk and issue management – Knowledge of monitoring risks and issues, planning how to mitigate or respond to those risks and issues and implementing the responses.