FINCA International, one of the world's leading microfinance institutions, provides financial services to more than 950,000 clients through 21 wholly-owned and operated subsidiaries in Africa, Eurasia, Latin America and the Greater Middle East. FINCA is a pioneer in providing microfinance products and services including credit, savings and money transfers to the lowest income entrepreneurs.
BASIC FUNCTION
The Regional Project Manager is responsible for the planning, implementation, execution, supervision, and control of all steps of the projects designated in the region. This includes the management of all deliverables for each step, organizing all project components in coordination with the Steering Committee, affiliate and regional management and to support, under the supervision of the Regional Director of Information Service, any IT project related to the affiliates of FINCA International in the region.
MAJOR ACTIVITIES
Under supervision and guidance from the Regional Director of Regional Information Service, The Regional Project Manager will be responsible for:
- PLAN AND ORGANIZE
- Responsible for planning the implementation budget, activities, deliverables, and recourses related to the implementation of the IT projects:
- Responsible for clear definition of implementation phases, activities, resources and scope of work by FINCA and vendor for each phase of the implementation activity, identifying the exit / entry criteria for each phase within the project.
- Responsible for preparation of project plan and budget.
- Prepare the respective documentation for project initiation (project charter, requirements, project plan, risk matrix, etc.); Ensure the documentation and budget is reviewed and approved by project stakeholders before initiation of the activity.
- Plan strategies for risk mitigation and contingency:
- Identify, characterize, and assess possible threats; Assess the vulnerability of critical assets and processes to specific threats
- Determine the risk
- Identify ways to reduce identified risks and prioritize risk reduction measures based on a strategy
- Prepare mitigation plans for identified risks
- Monitor the project cost structure and ensure the actual costs and terms are compared and analyzed on a regular basis with planned forecasts.
- Address and mitigate real and potential risks to project budgets and timelines. Document relevant processes and review adjustments to baseline timelines and costs with project stakeholders.
- Responsible for the administrative management of implementation team members. Ensures the delivery and evaluation of assigned obligations within predetermined budget and timeframes. Coordinates with the Regional Director of Information Service in terms of using resources from Regional IT team for project purposes.
- Responsible for leadership and management of the project team, with an authority and responsibility to run the project on a day to day basis, ensuring the efficient distribution of tasks and responsibility areas for local and regional team members, as well as vendor consultants.
- Monitor the status of the project:
- Periodic review of the project milestones.
- Identify delays and risks throughout all phases of the project and escalate as required
- Define cut-off periods for pending action items and monitor escalation of these items outside cut-off period.
- List of outstanding action items in the project status report along with the expected time and allocated resource for that item.
- Follow-up on the outstanding items as the case may be.
- Expected to execute work plans in a manner of collaboration, to secure alignment across the FINCA International strategy.
- ACQUIRE AND IMPLEMENT
- Identify, prioritize, specify and agree on business functions and technical requirements covering the full scope of all initiatives required to achieve the expected outcomes of the IT project assigned.
- Identify, document and analyze risks associated with the business requirements for IT projects application implementations in regional affiliates as part of the organization’s process for the development of requirements.
- Develop a feasibility study/confidence factor for the execution of project requirements against a set baseline. Ensure that the affiliate’s management team is aware and involved in the selection of alternative courses of action.
- Ensure project sponsors approve and sign off on business functional and technical requirements and feasibility study reports at predetermined key stages, as well as make the final decision with respect to deployment of the core banking application across the region.
- Manage the overall implementation activities in the region, coordinating all phases of the project and ensuring delivery of the project objectives within the planned boundaries of time, budget, personnel and material resources.
- Establish an implementation and fallback plan approved by project Steering Committee.
- Responsible for timely identification and impact assessment for all deviations from predetermined project constraints. Recommend and implement appropriate actions for risk mitigation.
- Coordinate the procurement procedures within the approved project budget. Stand for certification authority for all expenditures on behalf of the project.
- Manage the process of going live. Manage the onsite regional and affiliate teams during the initial period and after system conversion. Successfully transition the maintenance of the production and production support environments to the affiliate's and regional support teams. Evaluate the results of the pilot and provide recommendations on go-live date.
- Ensure the effective preparation of training materials and user guidelines, adoption / translation of existing training materials in line with structure and business process of the affiliate. Ensure the effective organization and execution of end user training sessions.
- DELIVER AND SUPPORT
- Manage all costs related to the IT projects application implementation process and maintain the approved cost allocation methodology for all project costs
- Report and classify problems that have been identified during the implementation process. Categorize problems as appropriate into related groups or domains (e.g., hardware, software, support software).
- Manage the set-up and organization of the affiliate level help-desk:
- Ensure the sufficient size and competency of the affiliate help desk infrastructure.
- Implement the communication framework between affiliate and regional support teams.
- Implement the standard issue management and reporting procedures
- Manage services provided by third parties to the IT projects application implementation process. Manage vendor's resources assigned to implementation activities, and control execution of deliverables determined by service level agreement.
- MONITOR AND EVALUATE
- Monitor the fulfillment of Service Agreement related to the IT projects application implementation process. Monitor the execution of deliverables determined in SOW. Periodically review performance against targets, analyze the cause of any deviations, and initiate remedial action to address the underlying causes. At appropriate times, perform root cause analysis across deviations.
- Responsible for project reporting, producing the regular reports about project progress, providing a written report about the lessons learned after the completion of the project, which will offer a global vision for future internal clients in particular and FINCA in general
- Identify and initiate remedial actions based on performance monitoring, assessment and reporting related to any IT projects assigned; Follow-up of all monitoring, reporting and assessments through:
- Review, negotiation and establishment of management responses
- Assignment of responsibility for remediation
- Tracking of the results of actions committed
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
- Active Project administration Certification (Project Management Certification - PMP)
- 10+ years of progressive Project Management experience.
- Strong experience initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and closing IT projects.
- Strong experience managing scope, cost and schedule risk factors.
- Proficient in managing stakeholders communications, multiple projects, risk register, milestones, WBS, allocating resources, budget, monitoring and tracking, quality assurance and performance control.
- Proficient in using MS Project and Microsoft Office products.
PERSONAL SKILLS
- Disposition to travel out of his/her place of origin up to 50% time possible.
- Excellent abilities of technical writing and documentation.
- Strong problem solving and communication skills across all levels of the business. Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
- Thrives well under pressure and is a creative and diligent problem solver
- Excellent interpersonal, written and oral communication skills of English and fluent Spanish Languages; The ability to present information and ideas clearly and concisely;
- Strong leadership skills with proven capacity to direct, to influence and to motivate the team under management.
- Excellent capacity to present and to explain the information, persuade others and promote the understanding and the consensus.
- Proven success in contributing to a team-oriented environment.
- Proven ability to balance, prioritize and organize multiple tasks.
- High level of energy, creativity, flexibility, enthusiasm and commitment· self-confidence and initiative
- Accuracy, attention to detail and awareness of deadlines
- A hard working self-starter with initiative and ability to set own priorities.
- Strong commitment to the social mission of FINCA.
http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH06/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=FINCA&cws=1&rid=884
