Position – IT Project Manager
Location – Washington, DC (Hybrid, 3 days Onsite & 2 Days Telework)
Type – Contract
Job Description
Job Summary:
DC Water is seeking an experienced IT Project Manager contractor to lead complex, cross-functional technology initiatives from initiation through implementation and closure. The role requires strong planning, execution, monitoring, and control, with clear accountability for measurable outcomes, timely decisions, and delivery within approved scope, schedule, budget, quality, and risk tolerances.
The successful candidate will convert business needs into executable plans, coordinate IT, business, and vendor teams, manage competing priorities, and provide accurate, decision-oriented reports and dashboards for leadership.
Core Accountabilities
- Outcome-Based Delivery: Define measurable outcomes, benefits, KPIs, acceptance criteria and target dates; track results through post-implementation review.
- Integrated Planning: Develop and maintain scope, work breakdown structure, schedule, milestones, dependencies, critical path, resources, budget, procurement, quality, risk, communications, testing, training, deployment and transition plans.
- Execution Leadership: Drive day-to-day delivery, assign ownership, remove impediments, resolve conflicts and hold business, IT and vendor teams accountable.
- Monitoring and Control: Measure performance against baselines using milestone, schedule, budget, resource, quality, risk and forecast indicators; initiate corrective action when required.
- Reporting and Dashboards: Produce concise weekly and monthly status reports, portfolio dashboards and executive presentations using Microsoft Project, Excel, Power BI, SharePoint and approved PPM tools.
- Forecasting and Recovery: Identify trends early, maintain realistic completion forecasts, and develop recovery plans with options, impacts and recommendations.
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead IT projects through initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, implementation, transition and closure across platforms such as IBM Maximo, Esri GIS, Genesys, SAP, Oracle, SharePoint and AI-enabled technologies.
- Define and control scope, objectives, deliverables, milestones, assumptions, constraints, success measures and acceptance criteria with business and IT stakeholders.
- Build and maintain logic-linked schedules with realistic durations, resource assignments, dependencies, critical path, milestones, baseline dates and delivery forecasts.
- Manage budgets, forecasts, resource plans, capacity needs, procurement activities and vendor commitments; reconcile actuals and forecasts with approved funding.
- Establish project governance, decision rights, meeting cadence, escalation paths, change control and required PMO artifacts.
- Maintain actionable RAID, decision, action, change and dependency logs with clear owners, due dates and timely closure.
- Monitor performance against approved baselines and implement corrective or recovery actions when scope, schedule, cost, quality, resource, risk or benefit targets are threatened.
- Define outcome and benefits measures, including KPIs, baselines, targets, data sources, owners, measurement frequency and post-go-live validation.
- Prepare leadership-ready reports and dashboards showing overall health, accomplishments, upcoming milestones, outcome progress, schedule and budget trends, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions and required actions.
- Ensure reporting data is timely, supportable and consistent with detailed project records; explain variances, forecast impacts and management recommendations.
- Facilitate kickoffs, planning and requirements workshops, design and risk reviews, steering committees, executive decisions and lessons learned.
- Coordinate IT, operations, business units, architecture, cybersecurity, data, vendors, consultants and external partners.
- Oversee requirements, solution design, configuration, integrations, data conversion, testing, UAT, training, organizational change, cutover, operational readiness and stabilization.
- Manage vendor performance against SOW milestones, deliverables, staffing, service levels, acceptance criteria, invoices and change requests.
- Ensure compliance with applicable cybersecurity, privacy, records, procurement, architecture and public-utility regulatory requirements.
- Provide decision-ready recommendations on scope, schedule, funding, resources, risk acceptance and delivery trade-offs.
- Complete project handoff, financial closeout, documentation, lessons learned and post-implementation outcome and benefits reviews.
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, Project Management or a related field.
- 7+ years of project management experience delivering complex enterprise IT or utility initiatives, including plans, schedules, budgets, risks, vendors and executive reporting.
- Demonstrated strength in integrated planning, execution, project controls, critical-path and dependency management, forecasting and recovery planning.
- Proven experience defining business outcomes, KPIs and benefits-realization measures, not only activity or deliverable status.
- Advanced capability with Microsoft Project and Excel, plus practical experience with Power BI, SharePoint and/or an enterprise PPM platform.
- Experience delivering system implementation, integration, data migration, infrastructure, cybersecurity, network, cloud, application or digital transformation projects.
- Experience applying predictive, Agile and hybrid delivery methods and managing vendor SOWs, deliverable acceptance, invoices and contract performance.
- Excellent facilitation, written communication, executive presentation, negotiation, problem-solving, and stakeholder-management skills.
- PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent recognized project management certification.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Public-sector, regulated utility, or water/wastewater project experience.
- Experience with enterprise asset management, work management, customer service, billing, permitting, field mobility, data and analytics, or operational technology initiatives.
- Experience with infrastructure, cybersecurity, network or mobile application projects and utility field-data collection.
