Planning Scheduler Lead

Job Description

Our clientNWG (Northumbrian Water Group) provides water and sewerage services to 2.7 million people in the North East of England as Northumbrian Water, and water services to 1.5 million people in the South East of England as Essex & Suffolk Water.We are proud to serve our customers and were committed to delivering great service, putting our customers at the heart of everything we do.The Assets Directorate understand the health of our assets, invest wisely and maintain them to continue to provide safe, reliable and resilient services to our customers today and in the future.We have launched an ambitious transformation programme to drive a real step change in how we deliver our capital projects. This requires the development of a high-performing PMO to provide a central controls function delivering impactful performance reporting,estimating, schedule and risk management, and governance. The overarching objective of the transformation programme is to transition from a hybrid PMO consisting of NWL staff and contractor support, to an entirely inhouse model.The opportunityWe’ve an amazing new opportunity to become our new Planning Lead, reporting into the Integrated Controls Manager within our Asset Programme Management Office (PMO). We see this role is essential to realising our National Leader ambitions and we’re lookingfor a motivated planning professional, with direct experience of working in a fast-paced Programme Office (PMO) environment.You’ll be responsible for leading a team of planning professionals to ensure the successful delivery of outcomes through best practice planning techniques, along with overseeing the development, maintenance, and tracking of project plans within a portfolioof works.We’re looking for you to proactively facilitate the upskilling of the Project Management community in project planning, develop and interpret schedule data to generate reports that provide insights and drive efficiencies, along with owning the schedule managementframework and uphold governance and assurance to enable informed choices making.You’ll develop and influence schedule reporting metrics and dashboard reporting., with periodic update of schedules and analysis of variance to baseline, along with driving and leading the continuous improvement of the planning function to help embed betterways of working.We’re looking for you to support Project Managers in ensuring accurate and realistic forecasting of performance related milestones, ensuring integration of contractor schedules into project schedules and ensure adequate risk provision, along with providinginput to the Project Manager on appropriate course of action in line with contractual obligations relating to submitted schedules.About youWe’re looking for you to have proven experience of leading a planning team within a PMO or a portfolio-programme-project environment, so you understand what motivates people and drives high performing teams. You’ll have proven knowledge and experience in cost,schedule, and risk integration.You’ll have experience of resource planning within specific planning software or a standalone system, ideally with experience Primavera P6 and MS Project, along with Microsoft packages, including MS SharePoint, Word, Excel, and Power BI, particularly in supportingsuccessful delivery of projects and programmes.We’re looking for you to have proven stakeholder management experience to influence schedule management embedment and improving process maturity at a senior level, be an SME in best practice schedule management and industry standards, along with a working knowledgeof Earned Value Management.You’ll have the proven ability to develop methods to communicate progress and raise issues as soon as they arise, along with the ability to work in a complex, fast-paced environment and can respond positively to problems and issues that arise.