ICT Specialist (PMO), P-4, ICTD New York (#106557)

UNICEF's ICT Division seeks a qualified ICT Specialist (PMO) to lead and provide subject matter expert support to the IT Program and Project Management Office.

UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF has spent 70 years working to improve the lives of children and their families. Defending children's rights throughout their lives requires a global presence, aiming to produce results and understand their effects. UNICEF believes all children have a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential – to the benefit of a better world.

For every child, a connected world

The overarching strategic goal of UNICEF's ICT Division (ICTD) is to transform and build partnerships with our stakeholders to successfully implement UNICEF programmes globally through the use of innovative technology-enabled solutions. The Strategy, Risk Management and Governance group is responsible to ensure global IT management support and governance by developing and maintaining a strategic IT plan including an IT Enterprise Architecture, support the key IT governance instruments and boards, and manage the IT project portfolio and project plans through a federated portfolio management system and ensure change management. A key function of the group is to manage the financial resources of the division, its human resources, IT procurement, asset management and learning and development. The group is also establishing IT management policies and procedures, performing technical reviews and quality assurance of applications and IT infrastructure projects.

How can you make a difference?

The ICT Specialist (Project Management Office) is responsible to lead and provide subject matter expert support to the IT Program and Project Management Office, the Program and Project Manager practitioners, IT Leadership, and their key stakeholders. The ICT Specialist (PMO) oversees the activities that support the company’s most complex strategic projects by ensuring reporting and governance compliance, providing portfolio and divisional performance measurements and recommendations, and trending analytics. This position is responsible for the Portfolio’s intake, supply and demand (resource management) methods, analytics and recommendations. Reporting responsibilities includes detailed analysis, dashboards and decision support updates (KPI’s) and recommendations on a regular cadence. The ICT Specialist (PMO) will at times provide project support for the Project and Program managers.

Key responsibilities:

Portfolio Governance & Controls: Maintain the IT governance framework model including managing the implementation and maintenance of processes and workflows and training new users. Working collaboratively across the IT and business organizations, lead the IT governance process improvement initiatives, and perform proactive internal reviews that drive process improvements. Anticipate downstream impacts of regulatory requirements. Drive the division to a lean and agile governance process that maintains control and compliance but improves project team effectiveness and improves decision making. 

Monitoring of Program and Project Portfolio Performance and supporting Divisional Decision-making Process:   Manage the collection and consolidation of weekly and monthly project and program status reports. Design effective Dashboard reporting that help stakeholders identify areas of attention and exceptions and drive performance improvements. Collect and analyze KPI’s and metrics and integrate the analysis into meaningful reporting (KPI's, Dashboard) that improve the overall operations of the division.

Effectively manage Portfolio Intake, Supply and Demand: Lead the methods and process supporting resource supply and demand analysis, and portfolio intake management that drive effective decision support reporting. Provide recommendations on how and when new work can be started. Provide the business administrator support for the Project Office PPM tools. 

Drive Divisional Portfolio Planning and Capacity Building: Provide the framework and leadership that drives the resource planning process, in close cooperation with the administrative services, platforms and solution center sections. Develop the timeline and schedule that support the process. Build the PPM tool analytics with resource, project, and program forecasts.  

To qualify as a champion for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Information Technology or related field is required. A combination of a first university degree in a relevant field combined with two additional years of relevant professional experience may be substituted for the advanced university degree.
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience is required. The successful candidate will have experience as a professional Project Manager handling complex technical projects and experience in project governance, portfolio management, EPM analytics, dashboards, trends, KPI’s and EPM tools. 
• PMP or Prince2 certification will be a strong asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

Our core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

In addition, the following functional competencies are required for this position:

• Analyzing [III]
• Applying Technical Expertise [III]
• Relating and Networking [II] 
• Formulating Strategies and Concept [III]  
• Learning and Researching [III]
• Persuading and Influencing [II]

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

This position is classified as “rotational” which means the incumbent is expected to rotate to another duty station upon completion of their tour of duty.