Sr. IT Project Manager

Be a part of the GROWING workforce at Oriental Trading Company, a Berkshire Hathaway Company!

Recognized as a Top 50 Internet and a Top 50 Catalog Retailer, we promote fun in how we take care of our employees, empower our employees to take care of our customers, and trust our customers to take care of spreading the word. Everything else simply takes care of itself.

As our Sr. IT Project Manager, you will be responsible for delivering business value and results by leading multiple project teams in defining, planning, and implementing of large scale projects, (Over 5,000+ hours) to achieve specific business objectives. Develops and guides high performance teams in achieving project budget, timeline and client experience and outcome expectations. Analyze project needs, establishes a project management approach, and recommends the appropriate level of planning, scheduling and control within the OTC Project Delivery Process. Ensure projects are completed within committed time and budget and are integrated with other information systems. Manage the development, execution, updating and reporting of comprehensive project plans and schedules. Transition products and services from development into production through seamless implementations and ongoing support. Position is a second-level manager and manages a group of project managers for a program of projects.

Essential Functions:

• Partner with the business and drive Information Technology to become a
• competitive advantage lever by:
• Introducing creative and innovative business ideas, concepts, opportunities and thinking
• Assessing, quantifying and communicating business value
• Prioritizing, establishing and communicating business expectations
• Devising optimal business solutions, approaches and execution plans
• Translating business direction into smart technology strategies, enablers and investments
• Driving to results with a sense of urgency and with a focus on quality
• Delivering to promise
• Measuring and reporting performance experiences and outcomes
• Sharing, evaluating and learning from knowledge, experiences and positive and negative outcomes
• Develop and nurture client, constituency, peer, staff and vendor relationships built on trust, collaboration, commitment, accountability and results
• Build and sustain high performing project teams that are characterized by exceptional leadership, strategies, people, best practices/processes and execution
• Responsible for overseeing the collaboration activities with external partners in the integration of services, technologies and capabilities to ensure delivery of project. Ensure contractual terms are adhered to, (where relevant).
• Expected to actively represent the Project Management Office Department(s) on cross-functional change projects.
• Expected to actively participate and may lead the implementation of new
• processes and process improvement initiatives designed to improve the
• efficiency and effectiveness of the Project Management Office.
• Develop and maintain the Project Charter, budget and status reports
• Plan, schedule and conduct project meetings and document and distribute
• meeting outcomes
• Collect and report measurements at appropriate project points
• Develop and maintain the Project Plan using OTC's standard project management methodology and processes
• Develop, actively maintain, document and publish decisions rendered, Action, Change and Issue Logs
• Use Phase Approval Checklists to identify which deliverables have been produced and the appropriate approvers for each project phase
• Ensure that all affected business areas, departments and support groups are informed and involved
• Ensure that the project team members have the appropriate knowledge and experience to perform their project role. If necessary, arrange the training required to provide the team members with the appropriate skills and knowledge
• Secure commitment for required resources and monitor and report status of those commitments (including hardware, software, physical and people resources)
• Identify, assign and supervise task completion.
• n addition to project deployment, responsibilities include career development, performance management, and pay determination and communication for project team.
• Evaluates the effectiveness of staff performance in support of user requirements as well as technical resources. Coordinates with other managers to integrate project with other projects, including application development, implementation, support and administration
• Serve as the focal point for communications among all project participants. Communicate direction to the project team. Communicate with the Executive Sponsors and IT Steering Committee on a regular and timely basis. Provide information and assist in communicating with the client, the business and external customers
• Ensure that actions are completed and that issues are resolved or escalated to achieve resolutions and that resolutions are communicated to impacted parties

• Identify and resolve project-related risks
• Include the following often overlooked or "short-cutted" project work:
• Organizational Change Plan - business and IT
  • Training Plan - business and IT
  • Documentation Plan - business and IT
  • Test Plan - unit, systems, integration, stress and quality assurance/quality verification
  • Post Implementation Review -- validate project success and to identify opportunities for improvement. Implement project-specific improvements identified in the Post Implementation Review.Requirements Management responsibilities:
  • Identify Requirements Management team members and approve the Requirements Management Plan. Ensure that OTC requirements management processes are followed; that the appropriate requirements management documentation is created and updated; and that the necessary approvals are obtained for the Requirements Definitions and Change Request documents.
  • Manage expectations and changes to the project through the use of OTC's Change Management process. Validate and approve Change Requests as documented in the Requirements Management Plan.

Here's what you need to join the fun:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience required.
• Masters Degree in Computer Science or Business preferred.

• PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is preferred
• Strong background in leading SDLC/Application Development projects
• Minimum seven (7) years experience managing large projects, (over 1000+ hours), including leading large enterprise-level projects
• Experience leading and delivering multiple large projects at once.
• Demonstrated effectiveness in complex problem solving situations, excellent interpersonal communications, good planning and organizational skills are required
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning and decision analysis
• Demonstrated experience in the use of multiple Project Management methodologies,( Agile, Iterative, Waterfall).

• Proficient written and oral communication skills
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Project
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite of products
• Good understanding of the business or function for which projects are assigned

Apply in less than ten minutes at http://www.myotccareer.com

So grab this opportunity and transform the "daily grind" into a thriving career, where fun is all in a day's work!

Oriental Trading Company, a Berkshire Hathaway Company (http://www.orientaltrading.com), the nation's leading direct marketer of value-priced novelties, toys and party supplies welcomes talented, motivated people who want to build a meaningful career and Make The World More Fun!

EOE