As a part of our Project Management Support Service at the ESA Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration, you will support its EPMO and PMOs of up to multi-hundred-million-euro projects related to spacecraft delivery and human operations in Low Earth Orbit, Moon or Mars missions. Within them you will have the following responsibilities:
- Coordinate and provide project management support during the project life-cycle (ECSS phases A to E1) specifically in the areas of schedule and risk management, delivering expertise and hands-on execution of the related activities in these knowledge areas.
- Execute the below, but not limited to, schedule-specific activities:
- Control the schedule artifacts provided by the industrial contractors and consortia of the projects, across their multiple tiers, and internal schedules;
- Apply different schedule artifacts and techniques to control different project/sub-project phases and life-cycle approaches, from waterfall to incremental and agile, including hybrid approaches;
- Perform schedule analysis at the required level including critical path analysis, float summary, performance indicators and quality metrics;
- Develop, integrate and update internal schedules in collaboration with the project management team and discipline technical leads by defining and sequencing activities, estimating durations, assigning resources and working calendars, run schedule risk assessments, and allocate relevant margins;
- Evaluate project schedule competing critical paths and activity hub bottlenecks, evaluate and recommend alternatives for schedule improvement (such as compression, fast-tracking and resequencing) to the technical teams for discussion and/or decision;
- Assess the alignment between the prime industrial schedules and their lower-tier suppliers, proactively identifying potential issues and proposing response actions;
- Run simulations and what-if scenarios in support of the management and technical decision process;
- Design and maintain periodic and ad-hoc schedule performance artifacts such as reports, dashboards and others, targeting internal and external stakeholders including project teams, corporate controlling, programme board, International Partners and industrial contractors, in line with the best practices;
- Perform schedule configuration management at project level, ensuring and detaining proper version tracking of the baseline and current schedules files and related documentation.
- Execute the below, but not limited to, risk-specific activities:
- Provide expert knowledge to the project teams in the risk management process, definition of response plans and follow-up of actions;
- Support project teams in identifying what-if scenarios, including risk adjusted scenarios;
- Evaluate risk data provided by internal and external stakeholders for closure of Review Item Discrepancies and and/or action items.
- Set-up, configure and administer the schedule and risk management tools environment for each project, as established with the project teams, ensuring their evolution and organisational harmonisation with the existing reporting applications.
- Provide expert schedule and risk assessments and recommendations to project teams during major procurement activities, (e.g. ITT, CCB), programmatic reviews and life-cycle gate reviews (e.g. ECSS SRR, PDR, CDR).
- Assist project teams in defining, updating, and reviewing their project Schedule and Risk Management Plans, including the internal processes and those interfacing the industrial suppliers and International Partners.
- Support the business unit controlling office in the definition, update, and reporting of project CaCs, including schedule-cost-resource-risk integration, using the available corporate tools as required.
- Capture lessons learned on schedule and risk management processes across the different projects and task groups, to make available for internal knowledge management.
- Contribute to processes standardisation, capture of best practices, and delivery of subject-matter expertise to the organisation at large via multi-disciplinary working groups, training, and tool-related assistance.
- Support the organisation in developing and implementing advanced schedule and risk management techniques and tools, including potential AI applications, by providing advice on new IT tools while coordinating development and testing activities.
You will have at least the following qualifications and relevant experience:
- Master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline (STEM, Project Management or Business Administration), preferentially with an affinity to Space.
- 4 years of experience in schedule and risk management for large capex projects in sectors such as Aerospace, Defence or Civil Construction, involving broad multi-tier industrial consortia.
- Proficiency with MS Project Professional, MS Project Online (former EPM/PPM), MS Office 365 and general IT tools, including the ability to extract and convert data sets across different applications; knowledge of VBA, M or DAX is an asset.
- Experience with schedule techniques such as critical path analysis, resource allocation and levelling, cost and risk integration, what-if scenarios, and best practices in schedule design.
- Ability to deliver from scratch complex schedules of integrated systems, guiding project teams in technically support and sponsor their development.
- Experience with quantitative and qualitative risk analysis techniques such as steering risk workshops, structuring risk data, performing Monte Carlo simulations to deliver risk-adjusted schedules and cost plans, and advising on risk response strategies.
- Skilled in analysing and reporting schedule and risk data with different visuals and appropriate metrics, via documents (ex. MS Word, PowerPoint), dashboards (ex. MS Excel, Power BI, SharePoint) and backlog tools (ex. MS Teams Planner).
- Knowledge of different project management approaches, including agile and incremental, and other knowledge areas specifically cost, procurement, integration and quality.
- Ability to interact and interface with highly-qualified and multi-cultural personnel from both technical and business domains, and to address communication to stakeholders of all quadrants and ranks up to Director/Minister/CEO-level.
- Experience with the schedule and risk specifies of spacecraft development and human operations is an asset.
- Project management support certifications in the referred areas (ex. PMI-SP, PMI-RMP, CAPM) are an asset.
- Flexibility, responsiveness, striving for excellency, a problem-solving attitude and proactivity to embrace challenges.
- Fluency in English read, written and spoking is mandatory, including the ability to write formal technical documents.
This job is located in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
If you think you have what it takes for this job, please send your CV together with a letter of motivation (both in English and in Word or PDF) to Viktoria Panicharova, by clicking on the button “Apply for this job” quoting job NL-HP-25039 asap.
An exciting and dynamic international working environment awaits you!
Inclusive and committed employer, our company works every day to combat all forms of discrimination and promote a respectful working environment. That's why, committed to gender diversity and overall inclusivity, we encourage all applications and profiles.
