Portfolio Partner

Job Purpose

BBC Product Group is looking to appoint a Portfolio Partner who will apply their extensive experience and engage at senior levels with both operational and project leadership. Providing high quality assurance, advice and support to the CPO for all Executive, Strategic and Critical projects which will span the BBC.

Main Responsibilities

Supporting strategic delivery

• Help the CPO build the strategic narratives needed to engage key stakeholders and executives.
• Responsible for the strategic forward plan and helping to drive its execution.
• Build effective relationships at senior and executive level to facilitate the provision of timely, specialist advice and support to influence programme set up and success as well as wider portfolio management and organisational capability development
• Help stakeholders diagnose strategic business problems, evaluate ideas and options, and facilitate agreement on solution approach.

Providing specialist support for critical projects

• Shape the design and delivery of major Executive level projects through timely, specialist support and advice, particularly in the creation of key documents and templates for these projects.
• Act as an advocate of good practice and ‘critical friend’ to support sponsors and project leaders in developing plans, anticipating and mitigating key risks, and ensuring effective decision-making and issue resolution.
• Ensure assurance and approval is fully integrated and planned; commission or deliver impartial programme reviews to provide stakeholders with confidence in their deliverability.
• Provide specialist outcome confidence assessment on an ongoing basis, in direct contact with the project, through executive reporting and as part of specified approval gates.
• Identify and aid the management of critical dependencies within the critical projects portfolio, and between the portfolio and other programmes and initiatives.

Executive level reporting and assurance

• Responsible for delivering the executive level reports for key initiatives taking place throughout Product Group and wider pan BBC critical projects.
• Tracking all risks that arise in relation to key projects and working on how we mitigate these going forward.
• Develop, implement and continuously improve common project, programme and portfolio management standards.
• Facilitate the learning from previous project experience by identifying and communicating transferable lessons, helping to embed these lessons and encourage best practice.
• Seek to improve visibility and consistency in the definition and oversight for project activity and our people to support business improvement and efficacy of project management.

Are you the right candidate?

To be successful in this role, you will need:

• Significant experience of managing large scale, complex programmes and projects, across full lifecycle, with significant budgets and resources, releasing significant benefits.
• Specialist senior stakeholder management skills, able to shape and influence senior management decision making based on programme management and assurance best practice. Able to adapt style and deliver challenging messages.
• Recognised project/programme/change management qualifications e.g. MSP, PRINCE2 Practitioner or APMP/PQ/RPP, with demonstrable career development activities.
• Able to work well in challenging circumstances with competing priorities to fixed deadlines.
• Experience at strategic as well as tactical delivery of transformational change initiatives.
• Has in-depth knowledge of the principles and concepts that underpin change, programme and project management good practice standards, tools and techniques.
• Experience of leading project reviews, assurance or audit services on major projects.
• Able to assimilate, filter and summarise complex information, identify themes to develop insights and a forward view of risks.
• Flexibility, including the ability to adapt approaches to particular projects or to achieve specific outcomes, coupled with the ability to handle ambiguity.

Interview process

Two stage interview process 

Virtual interview – approx. one hour of technical and values-based questions followed by presentation.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.

Job Purpose

BBC Product Group is looking to appoint a Portfolio Partner who will apply their extensive experience and engage at senior levels with both operational and project leadership. Providing high quality assurance, advice and support to the CPO for all Executive, Strategic and Critical projects which will span the BBC.

Main Responsibilities

Supporting strategic delivery

• Help the CPO build the strategic narratives needed to engage key stakeholders and executives.
• Responsible for the strategic forward plan and helping to drive its execution.
• Build effective relationships at senior and executive level to facilitate the provision of timely, specialist advice and support to influence programme set up and success as well as wider portfolio management and organisational capability development
• Help stakeholders diagnose strategic business problems, evaluate ideas and options, and facilitate agreement on solution approach.

Providing specialist support for critical projects

• Shape the design and delivery of major Executive level projects through timely, specialist support and advice, particularly in the creation of key documents and templates for these projects.
• Act as an advocate of good practice and ‘critical friend’ to support sponsors and project leaders in developing plans, anticipating and mitigating key risks, and ensuring effective decision-making and issue resolution.
• Ensure assurance and approval is fully integrated and planned; commission or deliver impartial programme reviews to provide stakeholders with confidence in their deliverability.
• Provide specialist outcome confidence assessment on an ongoing basis, in direct contact with the project, through executive reporting and as part of specified approval gates.
• Identify and aid the management of critical dependencies within the critical projects portfolio, and between the portfolio and other programmes and initiatives.

Executive level reporting and assurance

• Responsible for delivering the executive level reports for key initiatives taking place throughout Product Group and wider pan BBC critical projects.
• Tracking all risks that arise in relation to key projects and working on how we mitigate these going forward.
• Develop, implement and continuously improve common project, programme and portfolio management standards.
• Facilitate the learning from previous project experience by identifying and communicating transferable lessons, helping to embed these lessons and encourage best practice.
• Seek to improve visibility and consistency in the definition and oversight for project activity and our people to support business improvement and efficacy of project management.

Are you the right candidate?

To be successful in this role, you will need:

• Significant experience of managing large scale, complex programmes and projects, across full lifecycle, with significant budgets and resources, releasing significant benefits.
• Specialist senior stakeholder management skills, able to shape and influence senior management decision making based on programme management and assurance best practice. Able to adapt style and deliver challenging messages.
• Recognised project/programme/change management qualifications e.g. MSP, PRINCE2 Practitioner or APMP/PQ/RPP, with demonstrable career development activities.
• Able to work well in challenging circumstances with competing priorities to fixed deadlines.
• Experience at strategic as well as tactical delivery of transformational change initiatives.
• Has in-depth knowledge of the principles and concepts that underpin change, programme and project management good practice standards, tools and techniques.
• Experience of leading project reviews, assurance or audit services on major projects.
• Able to assimilate, filter and summarise complex information, identify themes to develop insights and a forward view of risks.
• Flexibility, including the ability to adapt approaches to particular projects or to achieve specific outcomes, coupled with the ability to handle ambiguity.

Interview process

Two stage interview process 

Virtual interview – approx. one hour of technical and values-based questions followed by presentation.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.

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