Associate Director, Diagnostic Project Management

The Diagnostic Project Management group within Precision Medicine, Project, Portfolio & Operations is accountable for providing project and portfolio management to the AZ Precision Medicine portfolio to ensure successful delivery of diagnostic projects from initiation of development to regulatory approval, across all therapy areas, and to further optimise the delivery of precision medicines by defining and championing best practices. Furthermore, this group is responsible for driving continuous improvement processes, for providing accurate Precision Medicine portfolio information for decision making and business reporting, and for capacity and resource management.

The Associate Director, Diagnostic Project Management will work across several cross-functional diagnostic project/ programme teams to provide hands on project mangement expertise to deliver projects within agreed time, budget and quality. The role depends on close collaboration with members of the Diagnostic Project Managemetn Office, diagnostic project teams and external partners to ensure strategic alignment, and with Diagnostic Information Managers, who are responsible for inputting project information into AZ’s enterprise planning tool (PLANIT).

Typical Accountabilities:

• Manages multiple complex projects to deliver to time, cost and quality

• Creates and manages project plans to track and drive delivery of major milestones

• Manages project costs aligned to investment decisions, and FTE resources aligned to project needs/ forecast demand

• Creates and manages project risk logs, and drives mitigating actions with diagnostic project teams

• Creates progress reports to track delivery to time, cost and quality

• Coaches, and works with, Diagnostic Information Managers to ensure accuracy of project/ portfolio information within AZ’s enterprise planning tool (PLANIT)

• Drives process simplification and standardisation across Precision Medicine to maximise efficiencies and establish best practice

• Meeting planning and facilitation

• Plans and facilitates Diagnostic Project Team meetings, ensuring accurate actions are captured, circulated and followed up on.

• Plans and facilitates Precision Medicine project review meetings, attended by Precision Medicine leaders, diagnostic project team members and key R&D stakeholders

• Deputises for the Director, Diagnostic Project Management at programme level, as necessary

Essential experience/skills

• BA/BSc in relevant subject (or equivalent experience)

• Significant experience within a scientific project management environment

• Expert understanding of Project Management techniques, tools and principles

• Strong organisation and forward-planning skills, with attention to detail

• Experience of global team-working and effectively communicating with key stakeholders

• A professional, enthusiastic and proactive approach, with the ability to independently manage a diverse and demanding workload

• Experience of using Microsoft Office/ Outlook, project planning tools and web-based programmes

• Prior experience in managing and reporting of project information

Desirable

• Professional project management qualification (e.g. PMP)

• High-level understanding and interest in Precision Medicine

• Experience of using PLANIT to accurately forecast resource and maintain milestones