Contract - Project Manager (Connected Services)

At Honda we embrace inclusion in our various policies, so whilst our contracts state that the hours are as required to fulfil the role with a minimum of 35 hours per week, we offer flexibility for when you work.  The regular office hours are 08:00 – 16:00 Monday to Thursday with a half hour lunch break & 08:00 – 13:00 on a Friday.  However, we offer flexibility of when you work with our daily flex-time start of between 07:00 and 11:00 providing that there is no business requirement.

Whilst there is no contractual right to work from home, the flexibility we offer is that you can request to work from home for a maximum of 50% of the working days in any one month, again providing there is no business requirement to attend the office.

Role: 

Working within HME ISD Solution Delivery department, this Project Manager role will be responsible for managing day-to-day project activities to ensure successful delivery of IT projects.  The role will involve management of projects relating to Connected Services that support business transformation in collaboration with development teams in Honda Japan and other partners.  The role will also be required to participate in some strategic planning activities and support some operational activities during hyper care and post Go-Live phases of projects.

Main Responsibilities:

• Works closely with the assigned user community (and through business technologists) to determine how technology can be used to address challenges or create opportunities, and then translates these needs into system requirements and design specifications.
• Plans, directs and coordinates activities for the development, delivery and implementation of technology or business projects for a given business unit. 
• Lead strategic planning and execution for regional systems, ensuring alignment with organisational goals and driving operational excellence.
• Act as the primary liaison with global stakeholders to address issues, resolve open items, and deliver key initiatives, fostering collaboration and ensuring seamless integration across regions.
• Ensures project goals or objectives are achieved within prescribed time frames and funding parameters by managing external teams who implement the projects.
• Provide leadership and motivation to project team members throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Responsible for managing project stakeholders, scope, cost, schedule, procurement, risk, communication and quality (see below for more detailed description).
• Alignment with key R&D functions to ensure implementation and testing for new connected products & digital services.

Stakeholder management

• Stakeholder mapping and management across the impacted business organizations and other involved internal / external parties within scope of the project.
• Keep close, direct contact with key end-user representatives to ensure technologies are providing valuable information-sharing capabilities to customers.
• Work closely with end users, business technologists and others to understand and prioritise business goals and information needs.

Scope management

• Ensures that project goals are accomplished and in line with business objectives, scope and level of effort.
• Manage the project scope by applying the prescribed Change Management process including coordinating, evaluating and responding to requests for changes from original specifications.
• Review project proposals or plans to determine time frame, funding limitations, procedures for accomplishing projects, staffing requirements and allotment of available departmental resources to various project phases.

Cost management

• Estimate workload based on the scope and activities defined in the Work Breakdown Structure.
• Monitor the budget using Earned Value Management technique.
• Define actions when applicable to stay within the approved cost baseline.

Schedule management

• Create and maintain project plans by Identifying project deliverables, milestones and required tasks using standard tools and methods for each phase of projects including organising for recruitment or assignment of project personnel.
• Assign duties, responsibility and scope of authority to team members as required while directing and monitoring work efforts daily to ensure project progresses on schedule and within budget.
• Perform quality reviews and escalate functional, quality and schedule (timeline) issues appropriately.
• Monitor progress against plan including coordinating project activities with activities of business units.

Procurement management

• Work closely with Procurement teams to manage the process required to make appropriate decisions regarding technology or vendor/implementation partner selection.
• Execute Control Procurement activities to assess whether vendor is delivering according to contract terms and conditions.

Risk management

• Create and maintain risk and issues log using standard tools and methods during each phase of project delivery lifecycle.
• Perform risk management to minimize their impact on the project through risk identification, mitigation and control.

Communication management

• Develop communication plan defining the communication strategy with the different stakeholders.
• Create and publish regular status reports using information prepared by project personnel and modify schedules or plans as required.
• Confer with project personnel to provide technical advice and resolve problems.
• Engage with key business stakeholders to get projects off the ground and resolve issues with customers.

Quality management

• Develop quality assurance test plans and direct quality assurance and security testing.
• Ensure any quality or security issues are addressed or mitigated by leading efforts and using creative approaches to problem solving. 
• Ensure easy access to information that is useful to users while understanding how to leverage applications for competitive advantage.

KPI’s

• Projects delivered on committed date.
• Projects delivered within budget.
• Projects delivered according to scope and (functional and non-functional) requirements.
• Projects with formal release approval / cancelled prior to implementation.
• Projects that adhere to a common / standardized delivery methodology and defined estimating model and have agreed project/quality/risk plans.
• Time allocation (Project Mgmt / Analyse / Design / Build / Test / Deploy; Direct / Value-add / Administrative).
• Creation and maintenance of the project plan, risk / issues log, change log & cost plan (estimate vs actuals).
• Supporting project communications / facilitate relationship with stakeholders.
• Use project controls and standard tools to ensure all necessary data and information can be reported accurately to the Programme through weekly dashboard and workstream reports.
• Co-ordination of project change requests, ensuring that change requests and impact assessments are conducted accurately and in a timely way. Proposed changes of scope, cost or time will be escalated to the BPL with an informed view of the impact. 
• Highlight where there are issues with the use of resources, and suggest corrective actions. 
• Ensure that outstanding issues at the end of the project are documented and passed on to the appropriate body.
• Working with the Project Lead to capture lessons learned throughout the project.
• Provide ad-hoc support to the Project Lead.
• Support entire of project milestones according Honda methodology (Waterfall) and use of Agile methods when agreed.
• Ensure adherence to organisational project management frameworks by utilising standard tools for Project Management (PDCA) reporting, Time log management, and tracking other critical deliverables.

Qualifications, skills, and experience:
Required

• Experience of Agile and Waterfall project delivery with PMI Certification preferred.
• Experience of managing complex projects including multiple technologies with multiple stakeholders / partners across multiple geographic locations.
• Solid project management skills with ability to multitask and manage multiple small to large projects in a cross-functional environment.
• Extensive experience of Project Management and managing transformation agenda including experience of managing teams and influencing senior-level management and key stakeholders.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills at all management levels including demonstrated ability to lead a team and motivate members to achieve successful outcomes.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with expertise in setting and managing customer expectations.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate staff and to apply skills and techniques to solve dynamic problems (Conflict management). 
• Demonstrated ability to identify critical path of projects using profound MS Project knowledge and act accordingly to mitigate any impact on it.
• Demonstrated experience to track project performance by analysing KPI’s related to time and budget using Earned Value Management technique or using burn down charts.
• Solid understanding of the software development process, including requirement gathering, analysis/design, development tools/technologies, release/version control, contemporary testing methodologies and deployment management.
• Ability to analyse, understand and effectively communicate between business requirements and technical design and implementation.
• Ability to communicate needs and schedules to IT and business, as well as ensure that plans are in place and standards are adhered to. 
• Ability to present and explain technical information in a way that establishes rapport, persuades others and gains understanding. 
• Demonstrate strong customer focus and ability to manage business expectations.
• Ability to travel within Europe region to meet different stakeholders.
• Experience on project management software tools to effectively manage, monitor and control project activities.
• Self-motivated and confident to work independently without supervision and in autonomy.
• Experienced in facilitation, negotiating and problem solving.

Desirable

• Solid understanding of current cloud technologies, IoT platforms and mobile app solutions.
• Technical proficiency in hardware and systems software, as well as experience implementing packages and working with vendors.
• Good ability for strategic planning of digital consumer solutions for IoT products and services.
• Experience of operational support for B2B & B2C digital solutions.
• Experience in the Automotive sector.
   

Honda is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in the workplace for all employees, temporary workers, contractors, applicants and visitors. Honda also encourages respect for the individual differences and talents of others while making full use of one's own abilities, based on Honda's philosophy of respect for the individual.

At Honda, we value and celebrate diversity and are committed to being a fair, non-discriminatory company that promotes and welcomes the uniqueness and differences of people around the world. We recognise that a diverse workforce allows for different ideas and perspectives, and we encourage everyone to share them. We strive to foster a culture of belonging that is consistent with Honda's core values and lived out in the way we work and respect each other. For us at Honda, diversifying our workforce means increasing its overall strength by providing people with equal opportunities - regardless of personal characteristics or previous careers.

This commitment flows directly from the Honda philosophy and the belief that we are all working towards a common goal. Honda recruits, hires, trains and promotes the most qualified/experienced individuals at all levels without regard to race, origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or any other protected characteristic.