Head of PMO
Cognia Law, South Africa

Cognia seamlessly extends corporates, banks and law firms’ legal capability to deliver sustainable outcomes. Our goal is to connect the legal sector, moving it from a siloed approach to integrated partnerships. We help in-house legal teams by bringing simplicity to complex matters and replacing broken procedures with efficient processes.

Cognia is a Chambers-ranked law company which integrates how legal services are provided so our team, partners, clients and communities thrive together with people at the heart of what we do. We encourage our people to bring their whole self to work and focus on enabling them to realise their full potential.

For more information, please visit www.cognialaw.com

Responsible for managing overall company priorities; portfolio oversight and pipeline planning; project delivery quality management oversight; stakeholder management; quality management; and risk and issue management.

Operationally, the Head of PMO provides and enables project prioritisation, management information, financial reporting, resource planning, project team training, decision making, and assist with talent sourcing.

In addition to overseeing the client project delivery governance, the PMO manager provides Business Development and operational support for both strategic and operational initiatives.

• Line management of the PMO Team.
• Ultimate accountability to the business for single source of truth around service delivery, quality, maintaining standards, and managing risk for internal and client facing service delivery (including delivery/ account management and BD relationships). This accountability includes implementing and maintaining standards of quality programs, programme and portfolio management and ensuring continuous improvement through Lean Six Sigma principles.
• Maturing the PMO role at Cognia to support project and continuous improvement in all areas of the business including Legal Delivery, Flex, Business Development and Marketing, Business Advisory Services and Business Services functions.
• Responsibility for the maintenance and if required updating of Cognia’s overall priority management process, project management methodology, processes and templates.
• Driving the building of PMO, Project and Programme Management capability within Cognia through developing and providing training, guidance and support to project managers, PMO Analysts and project administrators.
• Contributing to managing resource forecasting and capacity planning to ensure pipeline demand is understood and properly planned.
• Working with the Quality Manager to ensure compliance with Cognia’s quality policies and standards.
• Managing and participating in client RFP’s.
• Oversee project forecasting, costs and ensure project budgets are well managed.
• Ensure cross-programme dependencies are understood and managed.
• Coordinate project stage gates from initiation to closure to ensure good practice and ensure lessons learned are logged.
• Prepare regular status reporting for the engagement leadership from daily statistic to monthly and quarterly client reporting.

Special projects manager

• Working alongside CEO and COO on global projects delivering strategy and transformation within the organisation.

Business advisory associate

• Working as a member of the advisory team in a client facing advisory role to ensure smooth execution of projects as and when required.

• Tertiary qualification in Project Management.
• 8+ years experience in planning, executing, controlling and initiating and closing projects, and the ability to manage a portfolio oversight with minimal supervision.
• Experience in running a PMO office.
• Experience of managing the complete lifecycle of a project with project teams of 5 to 25 people.
• Experience in creating and maintaining project and plans, including risks, actions, issues, dependencies would be advantageous.
• Highly efficient in resource planning and tasks assignment.
• Knowledge of risk management and resource planning.
• Highly proficient skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and MS project.
• Excellent written/oral communication skills for reports and presentations.
• Diplomatic ability to influence others at all levels of the business.
• Strong and demonstrated ability to build lasting relationships with key stakeholders.
• Project Management certifications would be advantageous.

Honest Communication

• Uses active listening and refined questioning skills to elicit underlying needs and requirements from client, partners and other stakeholders
• Raises issues with clients and other stakeholders in a proactive, const

Job Rewards and Benefits