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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for IT Project Manager

💰 $90,000 - $140,000

ITProject ManagementPMOTechnologyCloud

🎯 Role Definition

The IT Project Manager leads end-to-end delivery of technology initiatives — from inception and requirements through build, test, deployment and post‑implementation support. This role manages scope, schedule, budget, risks and vendors while aligning projects to business strategy and measurable outcomes (ROI, SLAs, KPIs). The ideal candidate combines deep technical understanding (cloud, networking, applications) with proven project management methods (Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, hybrid), strong stakeholder management, and a track record of delivering medium-to-large cross-functional programs on time and on budget.

Key keywords: IT Project Manager, project delivery, cloud migration, Agile, PMP, stakeholder management, ITIL, SDLC, vendor management, budget control, risk mitigation.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Business Analyst transitioning to project delivery
  • Technical Lead or Application Delivery Lead moving into program management
  • IT Delivery Manager or Scrum Master stepping up to a full project manager role

Advancement To:

  • Senior IT Program Manager / Program Director
  • PMO Lead / Head of Project Management
  • Director of IT Operations or Head of Technical Delivery
  • Chief Information Officer (CIO) or VP of Engineering (long-term)

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Manager (technical products)
  • Release Manager / Release Train Engineer (RTE)
  • IT Service Delivery Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Define, document and drive delivery of project scope, objectives, success criteria and acceptance criteria across multi‑disciplinary teams; ensure delivered solutions meet business requirements and measurable outcomes (KPIs, ROI, SLAs).
  • Create and maintain comprehensive project plans (schedule, milestones, dependencies) using MS Project, JIRA Advanced Roadmaps or equivalent; ensure on‑time delivery through proactive tracking and schedule recovery plans.
  • Manage project budgets, forecast costs, control spend, and produce monthly financial reports; lead cost‑optimization and benefits realization activities to ensure projects deliver expected value.
  • Lead risk and issue management: identify, triage, document, mitigate and escalate risks; maintain a risk register and implement contingency plans to minimize business impact.
  • Serve as the single point of accountability for project delivery — coordinate cross‑functional resources (development, QA, infrastructure, security, networking, data), remove impediments and ensure team focus on priorities.
  • Facilitate and drive stakeholder engagement: build and maintain relationships with business sponsors, product owners, senior leadership, and third‑party vendors; run steering committee meetings and executive status briefings.
  • Oversee vendor and third‑party contract management: define deliverables, manage SLAs, track vendor performance, coordinate procurements and enforce contractual obligations.
  • Establish and govern change control processes: evaluate change requests, quantify impact to scope/schedule/budget, obtain approvals and update baselines accordingly.
  • Apply appropriate delivery methodologies (Scrum/Agile, Kanban, Waterfall, hybrid) and tailor ceremonies, artifacts and reporting to team and stakeholder needs.
  • Manage release and deployment planning: coordinate environment readiness, cutover activities, rollback plans, communication to stakeholders and post‑go‑live validation.
  • Drive quality assurance and testing governance: oversee integration testing, system testing, regression, performance testing and user acceptance testing (UAT); ensure test plans, defect triage and closure.
  • Coordinate data migrations and integrations: develop migration strategies, reconciliation plans, rollback procedures and collaborate with data engineers to ensure integrity and security of data transfers.
  • Ensure compliance with security, privacy and regulatory requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI where applicable) by embedding controls, coordinating security reviews and audits.
  • Build and maintain comprehensive project documentation: PID/charter, requirements traceability, architecture diagrams, runbooks, operational handover and knowledge transfer materials.
  • Lead post‑implementation reviews and lessons learned sessions: capture improvements, update playbooks and incorporate learnings into the PMO and delivery process to raise delivery maturity.
  • Manage resource planning and capacity: forecast resourcing needs, assign resources, negotiate allocations with functional managers and onboard external contractors as needed.
  • Drive continuous process improvement across delivery lifecycle: recommend tooling, automation, CI/CD improvements and standard operating procedures to increase velocity and predictability.
  • Coordinate business change management: develop training plans, user communications, adoption strategies and support models to ensure successful transition to business‑as‑usual operations.
  • Monitor and report on project health using metrics and dashboards (status, earned value, milestone progress, quality metrics, burn‑down and burn‑up charts) tailored to audience (technical teams vs. executives).
  • Lead technical governance reviews and architecture decision boards to validate design choices and ensure alignment with enterprise architecture and cloud strategy.
  • Facilitate cross‑team dependency management: surface, prioritize and resolve inter‑project dependencies and conflicting priorities across multiple workstreams.
  • Oversee incident response readiness for go‑live: coordinate war rooms, escalation paths, on‑call rosters and post‑mortem reporting to ensure swift issue resolution.
  • Ensure service transition and operational readiness: coordinate with operations teams to validate runbooks, monitoring, alerting and support SLAs prior to handover.
  • Mentor and develop junior project managers and delivery leads: provide coaching on stakeholder management, estimation, planning, and risk mitigation best practices.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist PMO with templates, standardized reporting and capacity planning.
  • Support procurement and vendor onboarding activities for short‑term contracts and cloud services.
  • Participate in internal audit requests related to project governance and compliance.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proven experience with project management tools: Microsoft Project, JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Asana, or Smartsheet.
  • Deep knowledge of delivery methodologies: Agile (Scrum/Kanban), Waterfall and hybrid approaches; experience as Scrum Master or Product Owner is a plus.
  • Financial management: budgeting, forecasting, earned value management (EVM) and cost control.
  • Vendor and contract management: SOWs, SLAs, vendor performance tracking, procurement lifecycles.
  • Cloud project experience: migrations or deployments on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Platform (GCP); familiarity with cloud architecture concepts and cost management.
  • Software delivery and SDLC knowledge: application development lifecycles, CI/CD pipelines, release management and deployment automation.
  • IT operations and infrastructure awareness: networking, servers, virtualization, storage, and data center/cloud operations.
  • Security and compliance literacy: data privacy, application security basics, identity and access management, and regulatory compliance (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
  • Testing and quality assurance: UAT coordination, test planning, defect lifecycle and test automation familiarity.
  • Reporting and analytics: KPI definition, dashboards (Power BI/Tableau), and status reporting to technical and executive audiences.
  • Configuration and change control processes, versioning and release orchestration tools.
  • Familiarity with DevOps practices, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes) and source control (Git) is advantageous.
  • Basic SQL and data migration techniques to validate data integrity during cutover.
  • ITIL foundations or experience in service transition/service management.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional stakeholder communication and executive reporting skills, able to translate technical status into business impact.
  • Leadership and team motivation: ability to lead cross‑functional teams without direct authority.
  • Strong negotiation and vendor management skills; ability to get commitments and resolve contract disputes.
  • Critical thinking and structured problem solving with a focus on root cause analysis and lasting solutions.
  • Adaptability and resilience in fast‑paced, ambiguous environments; excels in change leadership.
  • Prioritization and time management: managing multiple concurrent projects and shifting priorities.
  • Facilitation skills for workshops, steering committees, retrospectives and requirements elicitation.
  • Conflict resolution and escalation management to maintain momentum and team alignment.
  • Attention to detail with a bias for clear documentation and traceability.
  • Coaching and mentoring aptitude to develop junior staff and uplift delivery capability.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Business Administration, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree (MBA, MS in Information Systems) or specialized postgraduate certification in project/program management.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology / Information Systems
  • Business Administration / Management
  • Engineering (Electrical, Software)
  • Data Science / Analytics (for data migration and integration projects)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–10 years of professional experience in IT project or program management, with progressive responsibility in delivery roles.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years leading medium to large IT projects and programs (>$1M budgets or multi-team deliveries), experience managing cross‑functional delivery teams, vendors and enterprise stakeholders.
  • Certifications preferred: PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) or SAFe Agilist. ITIL Foundation certification is beneficial.
  • Demonstrated track record in application delivery, cloud migrations, infrastructure projects or complex system integrations in enterprise environments.
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