Project Manager

The Project Manager is not only the glue that holds any project together but also a key roleplayer that impacts the quality of the project. They own all project management tasks on a project or sub-component according to the project life cycle. The Project Manager is ultimately responsible for managing the overall delivery of the solution and the financial outcomes of each contract. They will interact with internal and external partners, including strategy, design, content, engineering, clients, and users. If you are curious, practical, and open to learning about a broad range of disciplines and building relationships with others, this role will suit you well. 

Key Focus Areas:

• Project Management - in collaboration with the Senior Project Manager as your mentor, you will own the responsibility for the planning, briefing, scheduling, prioritisation, documentation, financial management, and execution of all assigned projects;
• Delivery: in collaboration with the Senior Project Manager research, design, scope and manage flexible project solutions;  Negotiate project priorities with the team to ensure project timely delivery.
• Communication - clear, up-to-date and solution-driven internal communication through the internal processes of Reach to ensure that deliverables are achieved.
• Stakeholder Management -  Keep stakeholders abreast of project risks, issues and timelines, identify new opportunities and negotiate extensions to projects in collaboration with the Senior Project Manager; effectively managing expectations with project stakeholders. 
• Solution Driven -  Identify risks, bottlenecks and gaps within the projects and develop mitigation plans that allow the effective and efficient delivery of projects 
• Monitoring - ensure that each project’s progress is monitored in terms of achieving project objectives (fiscal and impact) and that adjustments are made where necessary to keep the project on track; working with the Project Lead and Senior Project Managers to collate and prepare high-quality donor narrative and financial reports;

Key Responsibilities:

• Responsible for the planning, briefing, scheduling, prioritisation, documentation, and execution of assigned projects from brief, assisting with budget preparation, to development, quality assurance/testing, and delivery/launch/ongoing support.
• Work closely with the Project Lead and/or the Senior Project Managers to manage all project stakeholders and ensure that the most innovative production methods are employed.
• Implement and manage project changes and interventions to achieve project goals, at all times keeping the Portfolio Team, Department Heads and stakeholders informed of the project’s progress.
• Ability to effectively identify project risks, develop mitigation strategies and communicate this to the relevant stakeholders with the view of resolving or decreasing the risk throughout this process.
• Create and maintain documentation, including internal and external status documents, project plans, a central filing system, client and donor reports, and timelines to ensure that projects are delivered on time, to budget and within scope.
• Develop briefing documents during the project lifecycle including but not limited to scope briefing, quality assurance, testing and content requirements.
• Have a deep understanding of the project’s production requirements (including the technologies we use) and work with the Praekelt production team, as well as internal and/or external development teams to schedule work, define production requirements and track progress against timelines and budget.
• Have strong leadership skills with the ability to effectively manage external service providers.
• Define and communicate priorities on tasks to ensure the most effective outcome is achieved for each project. 
• Schedule and collate or compile feedback for Donor reports, working with the Project Lead and Senior Project Managers to ensure the report delivers the required narrative, financial information and post-campaign analysis.
• Evaluate the outcomes of the project as established during the planning phase.
• Establish a communication schedule to update stakeholders including appropriate staff in the organization.
• Review the project schedule with the Portfolio Lead and/or Senior Project Managers and all other staff that will be affected by the project activities; revise the schedule as required.
• Create a detailed work plan that identifies and sequences the activities needed to complete the project. Maintain this document to record all project changes and decisions that impact the scope.
• Review the quality of the work completed with the project team regularly to ensure that it meets the project and organisation standards.
• Continuously explore methods to improve the ways of working and share relevant knowledge with the team 

Minimum Qualifications

• 3-5  years experience at middle-management level, in either Project Management, Grant Management, Stakeholder Relations and/or Digital Marketing at a large national or international NGO or corporation (public sector preferred).
• University Degree in a related subject

Relevant Experience and Skills

• Experience of Agile development methodologies
• In-depth knowledge of Project Management Principles
• Solid organizational skills including attention to detail and multitasking skills 
• Excellent time management skills
• Strong technical skills
• Improving ROI
• Excellent client-facing skills 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills 
• Strong Financial understanding of budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting
• Strong relationship-building abilities with a diverse team

What will set you apart from other applicants:

• Ability to manage interdependency between projects.
• Experience in working and/or managing projects in different African and/or developing countries.
• Passionate about the digital medium - always in the know about the latest trends, technologies and platforms.
• Exceptional use of  PPM Pro and Leankit
• A creative and innovative approach to Project and Risk management, consistently working to improve processes and projects.
• Ability to self-motivate and work with minimal oversight.
• Strong problem-solving abilities
• Deep experience in the health domain (public/digital/primary) or within Monitoring and Evaluation