Project Manager (Systems and Tools) - Internal candidates only

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Within UNOPS, Implementation Practices and Standards (IPS) is responsible for the UNOPS delivery practices. IPS provides thought leadership, standards and oversight as support to the successful delivery of programmes and projects within UNOPS service lines (infrastructure, procurement, project management, human resources and financial management services). 

IPS is comprised of the Infrastructure and Project Management Group (IPMG) and the Procurement Group (PG) which aims to reduce organizational risks, improve project performance, and promote excellence across UNOPS projects through the Standards Management Framework; and provides organisational oversight on the application of standards. These Groups also support the positioning of UNOPS in the UN system and development sector in Infrastructure, Project Management and Procurement. In addition, the Portfolio Support (PS) unit aims at building up and managing aspects of the organisational readiness of UNOPS. Last, the IPS is hosting the corporate Knowledge Management initiative.

Background information - IPMG

UNOPS strategic focus places increased emphasis on national capacity development and sustainable approaches to project management, procurement and infrastructure services. A key objective is to be recognized as an organization that delivers world-class infrastructure and project management, which is both economically and socially sustainable, even in the most challenging environments. To achieve this goal, UNOPS has established the Infrastructure and Project Management Group (IPMG). 

Within UNOPS, it is IPMG’s objective to serve the organization’s personnel and partners by broadening their infrastructure and project management capabilities, while disseminating best practices in both of these areas. Through this work, the group helps facilitate the successful delivery of programs and projects around the world.

To achieve its objectives, IPMG has established three interrelated and interdependent work streams, namely, Strategic Initiatives, Standards, and Engagement Assurance. IPMG is managed overall by the Deputy Director of IPMG.

** INTERNAL candidates only
The Standards Team is overall led and managed by the Head of Standards in close collaboration with the Manager of Standards. The Systems and Tools Project Manager will report directly to the Head of Standards.

Working within the Infrastructure and Project Management Group (IPMG), the incumbent will be expected to be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the project(s) and provide services to the different regional and headquarter entities, partners and beneficiaries via the development and management of IT systems and tools within IPMGs control. He/she is expected to meet and exceed the organization’s performance and delivery goals as applicable.

The Project Manager is responsible to produce/read the Project Initiation Documents (PID), Agreements with any external entities and have a thorough understanding of the terms, conditions, and the respective roles and responsibilities of the partners/stakeholders to ensure that IPMGs products are capable of meeting the business cases for both UNOPS and the external stakeholders.

The Project Manager may rely on a number of external suppliers for its successful delivery, managing tight timelines with some flexibility. The Project Manager is responsible for all aspects of the project life span.

S/he must be able to apply, with some degree of autonomy, the below duties and responsibilities.

Generic Project Management Responsibilities

Stakeholder Management:

• Establish a solid working relationship with the Project Board (Executive, Senior Users and Senior Suppliers), client and key stakeholders

• Manage communications and ensure stakeholders are aware of project activities, progress, exceptions and are in a position to accept handover products

• Advise the client on issues that may impact the achievement of their outcomes (including issues of sustainability and post project requirements such as maintenance)

• Manage the information flows between the Project Board and the project(s)

Delivery and Performance:

• Develop and maintain project plans

• Implement approved project plans (including the establishment of milestones) within tolerances set by the Project Board

• Manage the production of the required products, taking responsibility for overall progress and use of resources and initiating corrective action where necessary

• Liaise with any external suppliers or account managers

• Authorize Work Packages

• Advise the Project Board of any deviations from the plan

• Identify and manage risks so that maximum benefit to client and stakeholders is achieved

• Manage and review product quality and ensure products are accepted

• Monitor and evaluate performance of service providers

Procedures:

• Follow the Project Management Manual where applicable and ensure that all organizational policy is complied with (Operational Directives and Instructions)

• Prepare/adapt the following plans for approval by the Project Board: I. Project Initiation Documentation; II. Stage/Exception Plans and relevant Product Descriptions

• Prepare the following reports, as applicable:

• i. Highlight Reports

• ii. End Stage Reports

• iii. Handover Report

• Maintain the following:

• Manage budgets, cash flow and obligations to ensure that deliverables are met and payments to contractors and personnel are received on time.

• Where the Project Manager has no delegation as a committing officer, s/he retains these responsibilities and will monitor and instruct/request others to carry out the relevant commitments and disbursements.

Knowledge Management:

• Participate in the relevant Communities of Practice

• Actively interact with other PMs and the PM community to share case studies, lessons learned and best practice on the Knowledge System.

• Provide feedback on policy, supporting guidance with an aim towards continuous improvement of UNOPS policies

• Complete lessons learned as per reporting format

• Incorporate lessons learned from others as per planning format

Personnel Management: if applicable

• Lead and motivate the project management team

• Ensure that behavioural expectations of team members are established

• Ensure that performance reviews are conducted

• Select, recruit and train team as required by project plans

Specific Functional Responsibilities 

• Have a good understanding of the Project Management Manual (PMM) - oneUNOPS Projects (oUP), the project management system for the organization, is deeply interlinked with the PMM and should systemize the PMM requirements as much as possible and where adequate.

• Understand how UNOPS project management systems and tools work - oneUNOPS Projects is now nearly 3 years old and has undergone a lot of development work. The project manager should be able to understand how the different functionalities within the system works and be able to identify further areas of improvement based on user feedback and HQ needs.

• Understand what the business problem is and effectively communicate the problem/solution - There are several areas across the system which can be further enhanced and improved identified in a backlog file. These need to be managed and negotiated by the project manager to benefit UNOPS as a whole. Once the problem is identified, ensure that the solution is clearly communicated and explained to the stakeholders. Once agreed by the majority of the stakeholders, ensure the requirements are clearly written for ITG, taking into consideration aspects such as how it will affect existing (legacy) projects and engagements, reporting requirements etc. 

• Stakeholder management - This role involves a lot of stakeholder management and extensive discussions with HQ units and the field. The project manager must have a good relationship with stakeholders such as ITG, HSSE, FG, IPAS, PG and PLG as well as numerous field based colleagues. It is important that when a requirement is developed that stakeholders across the organization are consulted in order to obtain the most feasible solution.. 

• Understand where to obtain data from UNOPS Systems - To date, almost all datasets from oneUNOPS Projects have been migrated to Google BigQuery (BQ), which can be obtained through oneUNOPS Reports. All new functionalities or enhancements to existing functionalities will have implications on reporting and that this should be taken into consideration during system development.

• Prepare training materials - Whilst ITG is responsible for the preparation of guidance materials on Confluence, the project manager shall coordinate the preparation of tutorial videos for IPMG systems and tools, as need be. This will include communication through channels such as Currents or the Informed User Group. 

• Understand subject areas that could potentially be systemized - the project manager should be aware of other areas related to infrastructure and project management that could potentially be systemized or enhanced in the future. This includes: 

  • Grantee selection and grant support management processes

  • Works Contracts Management

  • Works Construction quality assurance 

  • SustainABLE and other sustainability related system enhancements

• An advanced University Degree (Master’s degree) preferably in Project Management, Business Administration, International Relations, Political/Security/Development Studies, or other relevant discipline is required.

• A first level University Degree (Bachelor’s degree) with a combination of 2 additional years of relevant professional experience in Project Management, Business Administration, International Relations, Political/Security/Development Studies, or other relevant discipline, may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

• A minimum of 5 years of experience (required) including experience in both:

(a)  Project Management related roles. 

(b) Coordinating design, development and/or management of ICT systems and tools.

• Experience with UNOPS is required.

• Experience developing or using oneUNOPS (projects and engagement modules) is required.

• Experience with, and/or specific knowledge of infrastructure and project management in a UNOPS context is required.

• Previous working experience in developing countries in an international environment is considered an asset.

• PRINCE2® Foundation certificate is considered an asset;

• PRINCE2® Practitioner certificate is considered an asset;

• MSP Foundation certificate is considered an asset.

• Fluency in English required

• Fluency in French and/or Spanish is highly desirable 

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

Work environment

IPS offers a unique work environment in UNOPS headquarters, in Copenhagen, Denmark, located in the UN City building, one of Copenhagen’s landmarks. UNOPS HQ offers a safe, family-friendly lifestyle environment with multiple opportunities for networking and active lifestyle, in a city known for its excellent urban design and planning.

The IPS team is a diverse team in terms of age, nationalities and family situations. IPS is keen on strengthening diversity in the team with a current focus on gender equality and geographic diversity. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. IPS is very dynamic and welcomes agility, autonomy and self-drive. The work of IPS is oriented towards exciting opportunities which have a corporate, global impact and is in touch with the whole of UNOPS. 

UNOPS has a hosting agreement with the Government of Denmark, and as such both national and international candidates are eligible for HQ-based positions. UNOPS officials are exempt from Danish taxes on UN incomes. EU citizens may opt to be registered with the Danish State Administration as EU migrant worker and keep the rights associated with that status or register through UNOPS with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. EU Citizens may apply for the public Danish health insurance or special health card depending on their choice of registration, while the non-EU citizens will be registered by UNOPS under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.