Project and Program Management - Project Manager Tech 3

Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. They are seeking a contractor to support operational excellence through program/portfolio management for the GSA team, helping leaders deliver against commitments by establishing a consistent project framework and providing reliable reporting.

Responsibilities:

• Design and operationalize the end-to-end intake process for Priority Cohort and other GSA initiative requests (channels, required information, routing, and status visibility)
• Facilitate triage with leaders and stakeholders: prioritize work, clarify outcomes and scope, confirm owners, and maintain a transparent portfolio backlog
• Publish portfolio-level intake and throughput reporting (new requests, aging, capacity signals) and recommend operating model improvements
• Establish standard project artifacts (charter, success criteria, deliverables, milestones, RACI, comms plan) and coach project leaders on consistent usage
• Build and maintain integrated plans/work-backs for Priority Cohorts and other initiatives, track milestones, dependencies, and critical path items
• Facilitate governance forums and reviews: drive action/decision capture, manage change control (scope/timeline), and ensure follow-through to closure
• Produce weekly/monthly portfolio and Priority Cohort status reporting (progress vs plan, health, key deliverables) with consistent definitions and templates
• Maintain RAID and dependency views; highlight trends, emerging risks, and cross-team blockers with recommended mitigations and asks
• Own work-backs for recurring executive communications: collect inputs, drive review checkpoints, and publish leadership-ready narratives and scorecards
• Support planning motions (FY planning and in-year) by consolidating priorities, aligning timelines, and standing up measurement baselines for key initiatives
• Deliver ad-hoc portfolio analysis and decision briefs (e.g., trade-offs, capacity considerations, scenario views) with clear assumptions and validated data
• Maintain risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies for the portfolio, drive mitigations, escalation paths, and owner follow-up to closure
• Provide project management support to initiative owners (cadence, action logs, meeting facilitation, stakeholder updates) and coordinate cross-team resolution of blockers
• Maintain the portfolio reporting mechanism and artifacts (templates, trackers, dashboards) and ensure data is current, consistent, and sourced appropriately
• Use Copilot Analyst and standard tooling (Power BI/Excel/SharePoint/Teams) to accelerate status consolidation and insight generation—while validating outputs, documenting methods, and maintaining trust in reporting
• Create and maintain a PMO playbook: templates, SOPs, governance guidance, and onboarding materials for initiative owners and contributors
• Run retrospectives and identify improvements to the operating rhythm and reporting approach, drive adoption of agreed changes across the team

Requirements:

• Program/Project Management (3–5 years): Hands-on experience running intake, planning, governance, RAID management, and executive reporting for portfolio-level initiatives
• Reporting Tool Proficiency (3–5 years): Strong skills in Excel, Power BI, SharePoint/Teams; familiarity with Dataverse/Fabric for producing and maintaining dashboards, trackers, and scorecards
• Stakeholder Facilitation & Communication (3–5 years): Proven ability to lead meetings, drive alignment, build relationships, and present clearly to senior leaders and cross-functional teams
• Program/project management expertise: work-backs, governance, RAID, dependency management, and executive-ready status reporting
• Portfolio thinking ability to manage competing priorities, drive alignment and trade-offs, and maintain an integrated view across multiple initiatives and stakeholders
• Reporting tool proficiency: strong Excel skills and comfort with Power BI (or similar) to produce and maintain scorecards/dashboards; familiarity with SharePoint/Teams-based tracking
• Familiarity with Dataverse/Fabric a plus
• Ways of working: high attention to detail, strong facilitation and written communication, ability to lead in an assistive capacity across teams, and comfort using Copilot Analyst to accelerate (with validation)
• Experience supporting senior stakeholders preferred
• Soft skills & executive readiness: self-starter who can work independently, lead meetings, build strong relationships with leaders, and present clearly to team members and leadership