Project Management Principal Specialist

Job Title

Project Management Principal Specialist

About the Business:

Southwest Airlines (SWA) wants to be the world's most loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline. SWA is using our Amadeus solutions and to help them in their vision, we are developing new features in a competency center embracing multiple domains: 120 people from R&D, product management and delivery, over 8 business domains and over 4 sites. 
SWA looks at Amadeus as a strategic partner and the role of the Project Management Principal Specialist in the SWA competency center is to lead key projects from R&D perspective through the definition and planning phases and then monitor and control the project to completion.

Summary of the role:

• You will lead the definition and planning phases of the SWA business programs inside the cross-functional competency center, including the definition and management of the related risks and dependencies
• You will monitor and control the Project plan and the resource utilization, using financial indicators to measure performance and report to business domain heads, including account and services
• You will guide and support the stream leaders of the various business domains, recommending strategies and best practices, to secure and achieve Project objectives in alignment with the competency center strategies
• You will coordinate and propose options to solve complex issues, considering business / operational / revenues / quality impacts, presenting that to internal or external stakeholders
• You will consolidate and present clear Project Status for stakeholders alignment and management communication

In this role you'll:

Project Management

• Define, monitor, and report on the Project plan necessary to the Program execution in alignment with our company Business Strategy and the customer needs
• Identify, centralize and monitor all the Project dependencies (internal & external)
• Anticipate on risks, centralize and lead mitigations definition
• Anticipate on deviations, articulate Request For Changes in alignment with Change Management process
• Gather the staffing needs and issues from all Streams to ensure plan is properly secured or that alternatives are properly defined with the impacted area
• Document and present recommendations to Program Team for plan adaptations and yearly Budget agreement
• Be accountable and get consolidated reporting from Stream Leaders for management
• Provide High Level guidance and constraints to secure planning in alignment with Customer expectations

Stakeholders Management

• Regular and close collaboration with the customer management team to report Project progress on all activities initiated or to be started
• Set agreed and dedicated Steering tools for decision making by the Program Team
• Consolidate and review Rough Order of Magnitude from the Experts and Business Team, define, and communicate Roadmaps to Customer for decision making prior to new commitment.
• Define and communicate directly to the Program Team the High-Level Roadmap scenario options to optimize the Competency Center capacity usage in terms of resources, skillset and expected deliveries
• Review and refine with the Program Team the different Project priority ranking to align, cascade and organize Project Planning in all streams impacted

Influence and coach

• Lead the transversal R&D Project Core Team composed by Stream Leaders, Business Analysts, QA Managers and Experts
• Assist, guide, share feedback and motivate Stream Leaders and other Team members 
• Share about customer business specificities and strategy within the competency Center

Processes and continuous improvement

• Chair the Change Management Governance to ensure alignment and ability to mitigate at Executive Level on the different Project Deviations
• Communicate Governance joint decisions and control the transversal execution in impacted Streams
• Lead the related Continuous Improvement discussions, assign follow-up actions to attendees and monitor. 
• Contribute to overall Continuous Improvement for the Competency Center, in terms of tools, partnership with the customer and collaboration with the RnD streams

About the Ideal Candidate:

• Masters or bachelor’s degree in computer science/Information Technology
• Experience in managing IT team or large IT project required (5 years minimum)
• Customer-facing role (5 years minimum)
• Understanding of the airline industry is required. 
• Understanding of Amadeus Altea suite is a plus.
• Computing: Technical a