Lead Project Manager- Hardware | Welwyn Garden City | Hybrid (2 days office)
About Us
Our teams are putting the world's retailers online using the cloud, robotics, AI, and IoT. We provide services to partner clients globally via our innovative advanced robotics technology, known as the Ocado Smart Platform ("OSP"), this drives our highly automated, multi-million pound Customer Fulfilment Centres (CFCs). In our CFCs - together with the proprietary software applications - we operate a world-class online grocery business that automates the single pick of products, ready for your online delivery.
About the role
Working alongside our Engineering and Product teams, this role will play a pivotal role in guiding and supporting the Technology mission in successfully delivering critical and essential projects and/or programmes, acting as a bridge between the technical and business worlds. This is a role where deep project expertise and experience is a key focus, and you will have excellent domain knowledge to support critical project and/or programme delivery. You'll be working with others around the Ocado Group business to find great solutions which support the continued growth of our International clients. In this role, you will be a go-to person for the projects you lead, with great expertise, problem solving and knowledge sharing, as well as the go-to person for other Project Managers to learn from. The focus for this role will be to work in project areas of high strategic importance, complexity or with projects that are earlier in their evolution.
What you will be doing
Leading and Influencing
- Build effective partnerships and foster unity with positivity and respect.
- Lead with empathy to effectively balance competing need between with project teams and stakeholders
- Mentor and coach others in the Project Management Craft across the organisation.
- Create a strong sense of purpose and mission for the project team
- Champion business requirements and communicate these in a compelling way to the project team
- Make effective, strategic decisions, with a clear rationale and using appropriate tools for the scenario
- Role models behaviours and applies Ocado Technology principles in day to day work
- Lead stakeholders at all levels across the business
- Promote the craft of Project Management throughout Ocado Technology, and share best practice with colleagues
Planning, Tracking & Delivery
- Collaborate with stakeholders and product teams to define requirements and scope. Balance scope, time and budget, keeping in mind commercial constraints.
- Develop and communicate a clear and coherent project schedule, highlighting the critical path, key dependencies and milestone dates, including external dependencies and possible gaps. Identify both small and significant threats to the critical path.
- Anticipate change and plan contingency schedules, alongside reacting to change efficiently by updating and communicating supporting materials
- Forecast, monitor and track usage of project and programme resources
- Lead on the development and continuous improvement of project governance processes
- Build in past learnings to current processes
- Drive large scale and/or multiple project teams to achieve milestone delivery
- Organise and execute orderly project closure and handover, allowing space to facilitate team reflection and celebration of success
- Promote awareness of project and/or programmes, key achievements and milestones
- Deep and thorough understanding of technical concepts and methodologies central to the project/ programme
Stakeholder Management
- Drive strategic project direction, positively influencing the decision of senior stakeholders.
- Bring together relevant stakeholders for collaboration and decision making by critically assessing stakeholder influence over the project and business (using appropriate tools to support this)
- Identifies similar problems across multiple projects or programmes, and seeks to implement an efficient solution
- Provide regular, concise and relevant reporting for stakeholders to build a common understanding of project requirements and progress
- Communicate with stakeholders to pre-empt challenges, risks, or questions, including appropriate solutions and remedies.
- Build confidence for your stakeholders, ensuring you are the go-to for the source of information, problem solving, and collaboration.
- Influence negative stakeholders and take them to a positive position
- Lead negotiations with internal and third party stakeholders in order to reach commercially viable solutions per the project and business requirement
Facilitation
- Lead with a bigger picture mindset, working towards and aligning with the project portfolio and collaborating cross-stream and cross-department.
- Identify and seek to resolve fundamental gaps, as well as opportunities to align over multiple challenges.
- Engage teams and individuals to collaborate in a productive and supportive environment to produce idea formation and innovation
- Lead and facilitate inclusive meetings to drive consensus and decision
- Form and share ideas on how to improve project and process efficiency
- Distribute project information and outcomes, and follow up on actions
- Provide guidance to others on problem solving.
- Provide expert oversight of multiple projects.
Risk and Issue Management
- Quantify and qualify project risk against business impact and take appropriate decisions.
- Recognise where risk and issues may impact other projects and programmes, both in-stream and cross stream, and communicate this appropriately.
- Use a variety of appropriate methods to seek, identify, log and track project risks and issues throughout the project lifecycle
- Quantify and qualify project risk against business impact and take appropriate decisions
- Lead risk and issue mitigation planning and implement strategies in line with project tolerances
- React to risk and issues as they arise and lead appropriate, timely, project response
We'd love to talk to you if you have...
- Experience with managing programmes, across different domains, built by engineering and product teams
- Knowledge of multiple functional areas in addition to the project craft, including product management, Engineering, UX/UI and Data Science
- Delivery and problem solving mindset, with the ability to lead matrix organisations to agree on priorities.
- Proven ability to plan, manage, track and deliver on commitments
- Ability to handle multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
What we offer you...
Our employee benefits are designed for you, we care about people and we've ensured we have a wealth of benefits that focus on your well-being. We regularly review our benefits to ensure we are supporting our employees appropriately. Currently, we offer technically stretching work, a competitive salary and;
- A Work from Home policy that sees you in the office typically 40% of your time.
- 30 days ‘working from anywhere' policy
- Wellbeing support through Apps and an Employee Assistance Programme
- 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days after 5 years service (plus optional holiday purchase)
- Pension scheme (various options available including employer contribution matching up to 7%)
- Private Medical Insurance
- 22 weeks paid maternity leave and 6 weeks paid paternity leave (once relevant service requirements complete)
- Train Ticket loan (interest-free)
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Free shuttle bus to and from Welwyn Garden City Train Station to the Welwyn Garden City offices
- Opportunity to participate in Share save and Buy as You Earn share schemes
- 15% discount on Ocado.com and free delivery for all employees
- Income Protection (can be up to 50% of salary for 3 years) and Life Assurance (3 x annual salary)
We also have regular divisional socials, sports clubs not to mention the Ocado Technology Academy for a packed schedule of courses, conferences and events. If you think you have what it takes to make a difference, please submit your application below.
Be bold, be unique, be brilliant, be you. We are looking for individuality and we value diversity. We are an equal opportunities employer and we are committed to treating all applicants and employees fairly and equally. We are committed to making reasonable adjustments to provide a positive, barrier-free recruitment process and supportive work environment.
If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of application.
We are thrilled to welcome applicants from across the world. Whilst we are able to offer visa sponsorship, please note that we are only able to cover costs relating to the Certificate of Sponsorship and the Immigration Skills Charge only. For all employment offers made for UK roles, it is expected that you will be based in the UK in commutable distance, ready for your first day of work, so please keep this in mind. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Due to the energising nature of Ocado's business, vacancy close dates, when stated, are indicative and may be subject to change so please apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. If you have applied and been rejected for this role in the last 6 months, or applied and been rejected for a role with a similar skill set, we will not re-evaluate you for this position. After 6 months, we will treat your application as a new one. All benefits information is subject to change and the terms of the individual arrangements. Please assume you have been unsuccessful if you haven't heard from us within 4 weeks.
About Ocado Group
When our journey started, we were all about changing the way people shop for groceries. 20 years later, we're developing our own ground breaking technology, opening multiple sites at an accelerating rate and engaging in exciting new business partnerships around the world!
Transforming an industry also means transforming the way we do business. As we continually develop new technologies and customer propositions, we're looking for the Everyday Pioneers to lead us into the next stage of our evolution: enhancing our capabilities, inspiring our teams and developing new ways of working.
Changing the way the world shops, for good.