D365 Project Manager, Managed Services

MCA Connect provides Microsoft Dynamics 365 consulting, implementation, and managed services. The Project Manager will manage concurrent managed services support, enhancement projects, and full life-cycle Dynamics 365 implementations, overseeing scope, schedules, resources, budgets, client relationships, and transitions into support.

Responsibilities:

• Manage multiple concurrent client engagements, and own deliverables, scope and expectations on each of them
• Provide leadership to all functional and business areas affected by the work
• Develop and maintain project plans, cost estimates, resource plans, communication plans, risk mitigation plans and issue resolution plans
• Drive project decisions and make recommendations to management about schedules, prioritization and resource allocation
• Work with MCA Connect resource management to secure resources, and resolve the challenges between support needs, enhancement commitments and other milestones
• Employ project management leading practices as provided by PMI and MCA Connect delivery standards
• Drive client satisfaction across the portfolio and own the health relationship of every account you carry
• Own the service relationship for each assigned live client and act as their main point of accountability
• Manage the client’s service desk tickets: triage, prioritization, assignment, aging, escalation and closure
• Balance case load across the available consultant pool and keep the queue from concentrating on one person
• Run regular service reviews covering ticket volumes and trends, consumption against the retainer or hours block, open risks and the forward plan
• Manage environment optimization and management activities, including release and update readiness for Microsoft's service update cadence, environment refreshes and performance reviews
• Monitor consumption against contract in period and flag over-consumption and under-consumption early
• Drive the conversation about overage, carry-over or contract change before the period closes
• Convert recurring incidents and chronic pain points into problem records, root cause work or scoped enhancement proposals
• Maintain accurate case records, time capture and status in Symphony so reporting, invoicing and utilization figures reconcile without manual correction
• Receive projects transitioning in from the implementation team and confirm documentation, environments, known issues and open items all transferred
• Qualify incoming requests, distinguish enhancements from support incidents, and route each to the right resources
• Coordinate estimation with solution architects and consultants, and produce the scope, effort, schedule and price the client will approve
• Secure written client approval of scope, cost and schedule before work begins
• Schedule enhancement work packages against the same resource pool that carries the support queue, and protect the support commitment when the two compete
• Manage each enhancement through design confirmation, build, test, client acceptance, deployment and post-deployment care
• Coordinate deployment windows, regression testing and release notes with the client
• Confirm enhancement releases align with Microsoft platform updates
• Confirm each enhancement is documented and handed into the support model at completion
• Direct the implementation across all phases: Diagnosis, Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment and Operation and various Business Process Areas
• Own the integrated project plan, the critical path, and the milestone and deliverable schedule
• Manage scope formally through change control, including the financial and schedule consequence of every approved change
• Coordinate the client-side workstreams the project which depends on: business process decisions, data readiness and cleansing, integration counterparties, testing resource, training and organizational change
• Drive go-live planning and cutover activities, including cutover rehearsal, go and no-go criteria, contingency and rollback, and hypercare staffing
• Produce the executive-level for client Steering Committee meetings
• Transition the completed implementation into MgS with the support model, documentation, environment inventory, open defect list and knowledge transfer all in place

Requirements:

• 4 or more years of experience directly managing software implementation deployments
• Demonstrated experience managing both project-based delivery and ongoing support or managed services delivery, ideally at the same time
• Experience with IT implementation methodologies across all phases of Diagnosis, Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment and Operation
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities across multiple concurrent clients
• Good planning, organizational and problem-solving skills
• Strong business acumen, including comfort with budgets, forecasts, and contract terms
• Ability to work closely with key business stakeholders to communicate progress and vision
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to allocate the correct resources to each project phase and monitor their performance
• Strong leadership, teambuilding and motivational skills
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (ERP) or Customer Engagement (CRM) is a strong plus
• Understanding industry standard Business Process Areas is a plus
• One or more full life-cycle Microsoft Dynamics implementations delivered end to end
• Experience with the wider Microsoft platform of technologies
• ERP implementation lead experience in the manufacturing industry
• Experience with service management practice, including ITIL-aligned incident, problem and change management
• PMI certification
• Microsoft certification on the Dynamics 365 platform
• Mastery of industry-standard project management tools