Senior Project Management Staff Member, National Security Sciences Directorate

Requisition Id 16062 

 

Overview

 

The Project Management Office (PMO) of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) seeks a Senior Project Management Staff Member to lead the project management efforts on either a large-scale scientific research and development project or large scientific instrument project.

 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is the largest US Department of Energy science and energy laboratory, conducting basic and applied research to deliver transformative solutions to compelling problems in energy and security. Our diverse capabilities span a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines, enabling the Laboratory to explore fundamental science challenges and to carry out the research needed to accelerate the delivery of solutions to the marketplace.

 

Major Duties/Responsibilities

 

The Senior Project Management Staff Member ensures the project uses project management best practices based on complexity and risk, allowing the Project Lead to focus on high-level strategy and the “science” of the project.  This role supports delivery by strengthening planning discipline, tracking, documentation, and reporting consistency, allowing the Project Lead to focus on strategic alignment, stakeholder engagement, and decision-making.  The Senior PMO Staff Member is expected to perform all responsibilities with little oversight and introduce the broader PMO team to potential improvements in practices.

 

Core Responsibilities

 

Project Plan: Translate the Project Lead’s high-level project plan into executable actions and assignments for team members. Help structure, refine, and operationalize the Project Lead’s high-level project plan into actionable work packages, ensuring alignment with Project Lead’s standards, templates, and governance practices.  Apply appropriate change management principles to project scope, schedule, and budget.

 

Schedule: Create and update project timelines and Gantt charts, identifying task dependencies and flagging potential delays before they impact milestones.

 

Budget: Develop spending forecasts and monitor project costs to ensure the project remains within its allocated budget, escalating issues to the Project Lead.

 

Risk & Issue Management: With the project team and Project Lead, identify risks and issues to the project, develop and track risk and issue resolution strategies and develop contingency plans. Monitor the daily workflow to identify early warning signs of risks or blockers and ensure they are documented in the project's risk log for Project Lead’s review and action.

 

Information Management: Maintain organized and accurate project documentation, serving as a central point for information integrity.  Support configuration control, change management, and consistency across scope, schedule, and budget artifacts.

 

Communication Bridge: Facilitate information flow between internal teams, vendors, and the Project Lead, ensuring all parties have the current data needed to proceed.

 

Status Reporting: Routinely report status to provide a clear picture of progress towards milestones and deliverables and to facilitate rapid identification and resolution of issues and risk mitigation

 

Deliver ORNL’s mission by aligning behaviors, priorities, and interactions with our core values of Impact, Integrity, Teamwork, Safety, and Service. Promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility by fostering a respectful workplace – in how we treat one another, work together, and measure success.

 

Basic Qualifications

 

• A bachelor’s degree in project or construction management, or a business or engineering related field.
• A minimum of ten years of project experience to include setting baselines, incorporating baseline changes, producing monthly reports and variance analysis.
• Complete understanding of project controls best practices regarding scope, time, cost, change, and risk.
• Hands-on experience with corporate-level financial and reporting systems (e.g. SAP, Oracle, Power BI).
• Hands-on experience with project management software (e.g. Primavera P6, MS Planner, SmartSheet).
• <