Director – Project Management

Job Description

Director of Project Management

A Director of Project Management doesn’t just manage; they lead, innovate and create. They are responsible for fostering creativity, transforming ambiguity into clarity, and balancing the creative process with the realities of delivering projects on time and within budget. The Director is responsible for developing, evolving and socializing processes to ensure a standardized approach to the creative process and agency operational excellence. A Director is also responsible for leading large-scale, complex projects from start to finish, including timelines, estimates, workflow, communication, resourcing and the inclusion of stakeholders (within the Agency and Groupe) at the right time.

Leadership

• Functions as lead for their account/group of accounts.
• Champions the Project Management function by continuously reinforcing department goals, agency vision and strategic plan.
• Partners with Project Management leads to standardize best practices across clients and portfolios, troubleshoot outages, streamline process and strategically evolve function by keeping efficiencies top of mind.
• Constantly assesses best practices and recommends ways to evolve Project Management function to support the best, most effective and efficient creative outcomes for our clients.
• Assists senior leaders in translating information and historical knowledge, making it relevant to strategic initiatives.
• Maintains strong internal and external relationships with Lead Teams, agency partners and clients (where relevant).
• Is point of escalation for Project Management team to resolve issues and has a high level of visibility into activity within each of those client teams.
• Accounts for project planning, oversight and execution of respective project assignments.
• Acts as key liaison within agency and with agency partners to solve conflicts, drive workflow, build relationships and create a culture of transparency.
• Promotes cross-functional collaboration among all departments and with agency partners, ensuring that feedback from various stakeholders is integrated into creative projects.

Creative

• Possesses a deep understanding of the creative process; capable of supporting great creative output by influencing each stage of the process.
• Builds relationships with creative team by responding to requests and questions throughout creative process.
• Assists with preparing for creative briefings by being involved in and driving forward the Initiation phase of the process.
• Coordinates logistics and monitors timing and issues associated with creative development.
• Puts systems in place to avoid budget or timing issues.
• Anticipates issues and flags to appropriate partners.
• Address gaps and obstacles in existing creative process and proposes solutions and options. Installs methodologies designed to enhance team effectiveness.
• Supports creative output by organizing final assets in partnership with Business Leadership.

Workflow/Timeline Management

• Develops execution plans and project timelines that bring client’s scope to life.
• Generates end-to-end project timelines from brief development to asset delivery, including production (in partnership with Production lead) and partner agency milestones.
• Drives and updates project timelines while communicating and collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Effectively manages workflow, establishing clear objectives and day-to-day priorities. Prioritizes projects and milestones.
• Conducts project frame (kickoff) meetings to review scope of work and ensure stakeholders are aligned on vision, timeline and resource plan.
• Ensures the right stakeholders are included in meetings and project milestones at the right time.
• Maintains high-level visibility into status of work they are not specifically assigned to across direct reports, in case support is required.
• Schedules internal project-related meetings, ensuring the right people are included as necessary.
• Keeps stakeholders informed throughout project lifecycles, alerting team and agency partners to potential risks, delays, scope creep, etc. This may include a comprehensive summary of meetings, recaps via weekly status reports, daily hot sheets, issues tracker, deliverables lists, etc.
• Ensures team is clear and aligned on feedback, recapping next steps and feedback through project lifecycles.
• Manages risks and obstacles according to client and internal priorities and serves as internal point of escalation for risk and resolution.
• Ensures all internal reviews/approvals, including CCO, are obtained and agency quality standards are met prior to client review or release.
• Facilitates post-mortems as needed in partnership with Lead Team and key stakeholders.

Operations

• Understands client business objectives and competitor set.
• Acts as a resource for internal team regarding project information and client executional items.
• Acts as internal expert when executional client issues arise.
• Maintains oversight of internal team operations, leaning in when needed.
• Contributes to evaluation of project results.
• Leads internal process improvement initiatives within their pod and keeps process efficiencies top of mind.
• Champions team processes and standardizes ways of working to create efficiencies in the way teams work across clients.
• Ensures agency internal templates and operational standards are implemented.
• Works closely with team partners to ensure Project Management principles are embedded in key processes.
• Approves timesheets to ensure accuracy and is accountable for implications of approved hours against projects.
• Accountable for all job codes being opened according to tracking and naming structure in a timely manner (even if they are not directly responsible for opening job codes).

Resourcing and Talent

• Partners with Resource Management to collaborate on resourcing needs.
• Requests new resources (outside of their assigned team) from Creative/Resource Management.
• Stays closely connected to Creative/Resource Management to identify and mitigate potential resourcing conflicts.
• Provides resource forecasts and project phasing based on estimates and timelines via agency-approved system(s) and process.
• Understands talents and skill sets within their team.
• Leans in when there are new-business wins or Project Management staffing gaps to maintain consistency and a standardized way of working.
• Prioritizes scheduling conflicts within team (working across teams as needed).
• Supports in securing backfills to keep work moving as required.

Financial Management

• Tracks burn rates against projects and makes recommendations to resolve as needed.
• Oversees designated account’s financial trends, proactively identifying solutions and escalating where needed to stay on track.
• A partner in developing client scopes, estimates and staff plans.
• Supports staff plan development by providing historical information and estimates as needed.
• Is jointly responsible with Lead Team for financial impact of project and resourcing decisions.
• Translates data to make it relevant while working through gray areas and staying nimble.
• Proactively flags potential scope creep.

Power of One

• Has a deep understanding of network capabilities and has developed strong relationships with agency partners.
• Manages project-specific communication and workflow with partner agency resources.
• Streamlines project communication with agency partners.

Qualifications

• At least 7 years of experience of project management / program management experience, preferably within a creative agency environment. 
• Client facing experience
• Experience working with executive-level leadership in a complex environment
• Experience managing fully integrated campaigns, from TVC/Commercial/Film to Digltal/Social
• Experience with scope development, staffing conversations, estimates, etc. 
• Mentorship and Management experience critical to growing a team

NOTE: This is a hybrid, 3 days/week role working out of our 35 W. Wacker, Chicago, IL office