WPP IT provides IT services for WPP, the world’s largest communications services group. As a creative transformation company, WPP is helping its clients transform the future through extraordinary work. WPP IT is an integral part of that journey and we are proud to provide technology for some of the world’s most creative brands.

Why we’re hiring:

The Delivery CoE Lead is accountable for the overall capability and practices of the Delivery and PPM function –including management of all Scrum Masters, Programme and Project Managers focused on delivery activity taking place across the Group – including where this work is done by contractors and/or our strategic delivery partners. Additionally, this role is accountable for maintaining the integrated plan for the strategic transformation portfolio and tracking delivery against it.

What you’ll be doing:

• Leading the resourcing for delivery and PPM roles where required, working with the [Strategic Portfolio Management] function, directly enabling the process and ensuring that we have these resources in the right locations with the right skills and expertise.
• Establishing and then continually evolves best practices, tools, standards and frameworks for delivery, project and programme management; ensuring that these are used everywhere, with feedback loops and support to allow for continuous improvement and universal adoption.
• Maintaining an integrated transformation portfolio plan by supporting Transformation Partners on understanding linkages between programmes and assessing impact of any milestones movements; support maintenance of ‘single source of truth’ in the form of integrated plan (incl. programmes milestones, dependencies, risks) and management reporting accordingly.
• Overseeing integrated plan change control by validating change requests, ensure programmes properly interlock new dependencies, and encourage programme teams to identify and communicate what is required to stick to the original plan as much as possible.
• Ensuring that line management within this capability is performed by [‘Chapter Leads’] within this function, who understand the ways of working and therefore the environment in which chapter members are operating, working to ensure the quality of work and professional development required.  Leads within the capability – working with the People Team and delivery verticals as appropriate for typical line management actions relating to promotions and remuneration, personnel issues, vacations, absences, etc.
• Responsible for ensuring that all change delivery initiatives, programmes and projects comply with requirements of Enterprise PMO in provision of accurate and timely data – facilitating the adoption of tools and practices that will allow for real-time, low-touch collaboration wherever possible – working to resolve issues of non-compliance as required.
• Ensuring that the function continues to develop the skills that we will need in the future, including learning pathways, and that there are established means for professional colleagues to transfer knowledge between each other.
• Facilitating strategic workforce planning for delivery, project and programme management to align with long-term trends, future demand and sourcing and location strategies, to ensure that the mix of professional development and workforce planning is able to provide future-ready talent in the right places when we need it.
• Supporting budget development for this capability – working with the [Finance & Operations] function – to optimise the professional investment and resource mix in this capability across employees, contract and partners against the portfolio of work.

Who you’ll be working with:

• Working with our strategic delivery partners to ensure appropriate coordination and best practice is shared and followed across both internal and third-party PPM and delivery capability – including tools and practices, taxonomy, resource allocation, delivery risk and issue management and triage, collaborative working, etc.
• Partnering with senior stakeholders across the business [Archetypes, OpCos, corporate functions], Programme Directors, our Delivery Partners and the [Strategic Portfolio Management] function to lead on the resolution of delivery bottlenecks, issues and escalations that are impeding successful programme or projects.

What you’ll need:

• An experienced change delivery professional with a strong track record of successfully leading major change/transformation programmes and delivering significant business benefits
• A passion for, and evidence of establishing, modern delivery practices and supporting toolsets and ways of working – to include creating an Agile and Lean delivery culture.
• Experience of leading and building large delivery teams and functions, preferably across multiple global locations.
• Experience of working with, and integrating delivery practices with, strategic delivery partners – preferably mix of both ‘offshore / nearshore’ and ‘Big 4’ system integrators.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to consolidate and interpret data and provide high-quality insights
• Strong facilitation skills, bias to action and ability to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty and constant change
• Ability to build strong relationships with key stakeholders and collaborate effectively with a number of programme teams
• Can see the big picture, while also maintaining close attention to detail 

Who you are:

You’re open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You’re optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You’re extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we’ll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?