Senior Project Manager, Quality Assurance & Testing

Staff – Non Union

Job Category
M&P – AAPS

Job Profile
AAPS Salaried – Information Systems and Technology, Level E2

Job Title
Senior Project Manager, Quality Assurance & Testing

Department
Quality Assurance Leadership Integrated Renewal Program Student

Compensation Range
$9,425.83 – $14,727.42 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date
November 4, 2022

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the Posting End Date above.

Job End Date

Apr 30, 2024

Job Summary

UBC has embarked on a multi-year journey to transform its academic and administrative support processes and system environments for the entire UBC community. In November 2020, UBC successfully went live with its new HR and Finance implementation of Workday. The Integrated Renewal Program (IRP) is now focused on the journey to renew the Student information ecosystem, anchored by the implementation of Workday Student.

The Integrated Renewal Program—Student (IRP Student) vision is to transform the way UBC supports learning and research, and how UBC works, to create a cohesive, integrated, and enriched experience for students, staff, and faculty. This implementation will result in superior support for UBC students, a better user experience, a new set of tools, a new way of working, and improved reporting for informed decision-making. IRP Student will leverage the industry-leading cloud enterprise solution Workday to replace our current core Student administration systems with a new integrated, user friendly, mobile-enabled platform.

For more information on the IRP, please visit www.integrated-renewal.ubc.ca

The Senior Project Manager, QA & Testing manages all aspects of the QA & Testing activities of large, multifaceted projects, with key focus in End-to-End Testing.  In addition, ensuring project deliverables are produced by the QA & Testing team in alignment with the overall program timeline.  The Senior Project Manager also ensures collaboration, engagement and management of work that other IRP Student teams require with QA team.
The incumbent directs and coordinates with the QA Team, cross-functional team and manages inter-project dependencies and communication. The incumbent develops and oversees project plans, schedules, resources, budgets and establishes metrics to monitor the quality of deliverables and the level of customer satisfaction. The Senior Project Manager works collaboratively with key stakeholders, including University senior management.

Organizational Status
The Senior Project Manager, QA & Testing works mainly with the Quality Assurance and Testing team and cross functional collaboration with Project Managers in other areas. The Senior Project Manager reports directly to the Senior Manager, Quality Assurance & Testing, while working closely with senior leadership, IRP Program Management Office and staff in other administrative and academic units.
Work Performed

Specific Duties:
– Manages complex enterprise-level projects with multiple large-scale functional areas to further develop and implement aspects of Quality Assurance & Testing work related to information systems and business processes that involve the greater UBC community.
– Leads areas of responsibility including project management, End-to-End Planning, and will be responsible to ensure consistent application of project management principles established within IRP Student
– Provides senior level expertise and direction into the approach for system development and deployment, package implementation, system scalability and performance, and University-wide systems integration.
– Maintains and manages risk, action, issue and decision (RAID) logs.
– Leads and manages the definition of scope, sequencing, scheduling, and budgeting of the implementation plan with input and support from the workstream teams.
– Develops, maintains and communicates an overall QA Plan, ensuring resource optimization across the QA Team
– Manages procurement in collaboration with UBC Procurement and UBC Legal Counsel to develop compliant and effective procurement documentation, processes, and evaluation methods.
– Leads vendor management with support from the IRP Student and UBC Procurement including procurement planning, requests for proposals, vendor assessments, contract negotiation and management.
– Through community engagement and educational programming, ensures consistent application of Adoption and Sustainment principles across the project and collaborates with stakeholders within UBC IT and UBC Community.
– Defines and measures project related performance indicators and takes appropriate corrective action.
– Conducts post-implementation reviews to ensure continuous improvement and learning.
– Oversees deliverables associated with the Quality Assurance & TestingTeam; monitoring for consistent and predictable system and tool performance.
– Collaborates with technical and other professionals on Enterprise Strategic Initiatives to share best practices and identify and resolve cross-program impacts.

Core Duties:
– Initiates projects following appropriate project management methodology including gathering and defining comprehensive project requirements, ensuring for strategic alignment, developing project charters, project plans, budgets and schedules, determining staffing requirements, and forming cross-functional project teams.
– Defines and follows project management methods, procedures, and quality objectives, including metrics for assessing progress.
– Balances workload, provides technical and analytical guidance and work direction to project team, including scheduling, assignment of work, review of project efforts and removal of roadblocks which inhibit project success.
– Ensures that all team members have the tools and training required to perform effectively, and provides the team with constructive feedback as it pertains to project performance.
– Assesses variances from the project plans, budgets and schedules, develops and implements changes as necessary to ensure that the project remains within specified scope and is within time, cost, and quality objectives, and keeps management aware of the situation.
– Evaluates and ensures for sponsor/client satisfaction at project completion.
– Drafts contracts and Service Level Agreements and manages RFIs/RFPs for evaluation, selection and procurement of products and/or services from vendors.
– Identifies potential areas for improvement in current methodologies and provides coaching to project managers.
– Develops and maintains a productive working relationship with project sponsors, vendors and key clients.
– Maintains appropriate professional designations and up-to-date knowledge of current information technology techniques and tools.
– Performs other related duties as required.

Consequence of Error/Judgement
IRP Student has the mandate plays a key role in enabling the University to achieve its goal of becoming one of the world’s leading universities. The Senior Project Manager plays a significant role in the implementation of enterprise-wide systems and processes. Should these projects not be completed successfully or the results not support the activities of the University, this would compromise the University’s ability to achieve its strategic goals and vision. Inability of systems and processes to support the University’s needs could seriously compromise daily business and activities at the University. This position must assume responsibility for project decisions that could have significant financial impact on the University. This position must be able to foresee potential problems before they occur and take corrective action.
Supervision Received

The Senior Project Manager, Quality Assurance & Testing reports to the Senior Manager, Quality Assurance & Testing, IRP Student, This position must be able to work independently and assume full responsibility for their decisions. Works within general technical and administrative parameters and outcomes are reviewed in terms of technical vision and the achievement of specific strategic goals.
Supervision Given
Manages staff directly and indirectly through subordinates. Plans, directs and supervises work of senior systems analysts, intermediate analysts, programmers, consultants, business analysts, quality assurance analysts, and other staff assigned to projects. Project direction responsibilities may include technical and user staff from UBC IT Infrastructure, UBC IT Support, UBC IT Applications, academic departments, customers, and other administrative units around campus.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Post-graduate degree may be required for specialized positions. Minimum of nine years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience. Supervisory experience may be required. Technical expertise in a highly specialized area required.
Preferred Qualifications

-Degree in an IT or Business Administration related discipline preferred.
-Project Management Professional designation is an asset.
-Change Management professional designation is an asset

-Experience managing QA Team and have thorough understanding of QA & Testing activities in the project lifecycle.

– Expertise in managing End-to-End testing in a large scale enterprise environment

-Supervisory experience is required.
-Experience will demonstrate progressive responsibility, preferably in a University or other public sector environment.
-Project experience in a higher-education environment, policy and regulatory compliance situations is an asset.
-Technical expertise in a highly specialized area required.
-Domain experience in finance, supply chain, billing/payables.
-Experience with PeopleSoft, or other similar COTS packages, implementations is required.
-Experience in change management, budget development, financial management, and risk management.
-Technical expertise and experience in Information technology project management of large scale, commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) systems including related experience in managing systems development, enterprise architecture, and business process change as it applies to COTS and custom systems, data migration and systems integration.

– Demonstrated ongoing career development through active and self-motivated professional development in the field of project management.
– Demonstrated ability to:
o Conduct needs analyses, plan, organize, manage, monitor, complete, and evaluate projects within allocated time and resources.
o Effectively facilitate groups to achieve appropriate outcome.
o Develop and deliver effective presentations and workshops.
o Identify, obtain, and effectively manage organizational resources (e.g., people, materials, assets, budgets).
o Build relationships, consult with customers and potential customers.
o Effectively manage multiple tasks and priorities, work in a fast-paced environment, and manage responsibilities and tasks to meet time sensitive, critical deadlines.

– Intermediate knowledge of applications development methodologies, as well as development and implementation best practices, “rules of thumb”, and benchmarks.
– An understanding of key trends and players in the IT industry.
– Effective leadership, consulting, consensus building, conflict resolution, and negotiation and team-building skills are an asset.

– Experience in project management tools (Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, JIRA & Confluence) is an asset.

Collaboration – Identifies and improves communication to bring conflict within the team into the open and facilitate resolution. Openly shares credit for team accomplishment. Monitors individual and team effectiveness and recommends improvement to facilitate collaboration. Considered a role model as a team player. Demonstrates high level of enthusiasm and commitment to team goals under difficult or adverse situations; encourages others to respond similarly. Strongly influences team strategy and processes.

Communication for Results – Converses with, writes strategic documents for, and creates/delivers presentations to internal business leaders as well as external groups. Leads discussions with senior leaders and external partners in ways that support strategic planning and decision-making. Seeks a consensus with business leaders. Debates opinions, tests understanding, and clarifies judgments. Identifies underlying differences and resolves conflict openly and empathetically. Explains the context of multiple, complex interrelated situations. Asks searching, probing questions, plays devil’s advocate, and solicits authoritative perspectives and advice prior to approving plans and recommendations.

Problem Solving – Diagnoses problems using formal problem-solving tools and techniques from multiple angles and probes underlying issues to generate multiple potential solutions. Proactively anticipates and prevents problems. Devises, facilitates buy-in, makes recommendations, and guides implementation of corrective and/or preventive actions for complex issues that cross organizational boundaries and are unclear in nature. Identifies potential consequences and risk levels. Seeks support and buy-in for problem definition, methods of resolution, and accountability.

Accountability – Sets enhanced objectives for self and others. Monitors performance trends and identifies opportunities to improve standards. Provides regular feedback and suggests alternative approaches necessary to ensure that organizational objectives and superior standards are achieved. Delegates responsibility and reallocates resources as needed to ensure that priorities are met for initiatives within area of responsibility.

Analytical Thinking – Determines criteria for assessing issues and opportunities. Establishes clear goals and priorities needed to assess performance. Identifies relationships and linkages between different information sources. Anticipates issues that are not readily apparent on the surface. Identifies root causes and effects. Establishes clear goals and priorities. Anticipates potential problems and develops solutions needed to resolve them. Systemically analyzes relationships between apparently independent problems and issues. Reviews and cross-reviews reports. Identifies trends as well as isolated events. Translates analytical reports into management presentations, and provides guidance to resolve issues. Anticipates the possible outcome of potential solutions. Identifies areas of significant concern or opportunity. Probes and initiates research to identify critical problems.

Business Enterprise Knowledge – Directs and coordinates the development and implementation of process-based solutions that cross organizational lines. Creates business case for investment in process and technological enhancements. Sets clear explanations for the integration and alignment of technology and business functions, focusing on the strategic value provided.