Job Title
Senior Project Manager- Life Sciences
Job Description Summary
The Senior Project Manager manages the successful deployment of multiple and simultaneous Roche Tissue Diagnostics (RTD) projects including critical Laboratories & Environments, Operations/Manufacturing, and Space Planning/Moves, Adds and Changes achieved through careful planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling of project resources and deliverables. Operating as an embedded service-provider Project Manager within the client’s capital project ecosystem, this role plans, governs, delivers, and reports projects in accordance with the client’s formal capital project delivery practices, steering-committee governance model, and the account’s Statement of Work, applied proportionate to each project’s size and classification.
In this highly collaborative, cGMP-regulated environment, clear and concise communication across all organizational units; Senior Leadership, Safety, Health & Environmental (SHE), Quality, Information Technology (IT), Procurement, and Department Managers is essential. Working closely with Facilities, SHE, subject matter experts, and third-party vendors, this Sr. Manager should possess a strong desire for tackling new challenges with innovative solutions and a “can do” attitude.
Job Description
Leadership & Team Management
- Strong leadership: Establishes clear expectations of the team, holds individuals and contractors accountable, and monitors and manages performance; an inspiring team leader who guides, motivates, and develops the project team’s skills to consistently maintain quality, timeliness, and budget, leading the Project Delivery Team through all phases while maintaining segregation of duties with the client’s Steering Committee (SC) and User Team Lead (UTL).
- Problem-solving & time management: Utilizes critical thinking, data analysis, and informed decision-making to overcome challenges; prioritizes tasks effectively and plans, schedules, tracks projects and staffing resources to ensure deadlines are consistently achieved without sacrificing quality.
Project Governance & Steering Committee Interface
- Establishes and maintains the Project Execution Plan (PEP) governance structure, Delegation of Authority (DoA), and handover strategy keeping it current with Steering Committee approval.
- Reports delivery status to the SC (as presenter, not a voting member): presents cost, schedule, quality, funding, and change status; issues pre-reads at least two working days in advance; organizes SC meeting logistics and records all decisions and actions; supports the SC cadence (every 4–6 weeks best practice, quarterly minimum, and before each stage gate) with PM/UTL nominations and SC accountabilities formally documented; escalates decisions, changes, and risks per the project DoA and defined risk tolerance thresholds.
Phase & Stage-Gate Delivery
- Delivers projects through the client’s stage-gated lifecycle. Feasibility/Project Preparation, Conceptual Design (CD), Basic Design (BD), Detailed Design (DD), Construction & Commissioning (CC), Handover, Operational Start-Up (OSU), and Project Close-Out (PCO) meeting the mandatory List of Deliverables at each phase and managing estimate maturity (±50% at feasibility, ±20% Concept Cost Estimate at end of CD, ±10% Design Cost Estimate at end of BD) through the Approved-for-Construction (AFC) handoff into construction.
- During feasibility and project preparation, creates the required project management deliverables, conducts the Project Delivery Method (PDM) selection workshop and recommends the PDM to the SC, executes the pre-funding review, and prepares the Funding Application jointly with the UTL; prepares for formal Stage-Gate Project Reviews, submits all mandatory funding documentation in advance, and ensures resulting action items are followed up and closed.
- Full-lifecycle management: Manages due diligence, programming, design, entitlements, bidding, permitting, procurement, design team/contractor/vendor selection, budget, schedule creation/management, sustainability, and post-construction services; guides RTD and the Service Provider’s team through design implementation, procurement, and construction; may oversee capital improvement programs at multiple sites through local/account-based resources.
- Executes a formal, documented asset handover from the Project Team to Operations/the UTL; supports the Commissioning Plan, Mechanical Completion, and readiness for qualification activities; issues the Project Closure Report (PCR) with final benchmarking and lessons learned and completes financial close-out.
Scope & Change Management
- Facilitates stakeholder analysis and requirements gathering, analysis, and agreement; supports approval of the User Requirements Brief/Specification (URB/URS) and clearly documents in-scope and out-of-scope boundaries, assumptions, and constraints.
- Manages approved scope through formal change management: maintains the project change log and change requests, protects approved cost and schedule baselines, reflects change impacts in the Forecast Final Cost (FFC), and reports change status (type, quantity, and cost/time/quality impact) in monthly project reporting.
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Cost Management & Financial Stewardship
- Budget planning & financial stewardship: Proven skills in budget development, RFPs, bidding, estimating, and budget-versus-actual reconciliation; plans cost estimating and management, maintains the Basis of Estimate, and applies continuous estimating and Target Value Delivery on cost-target-focused projects.
- Monitors and controls project cost in the client’s CAPEX systems (Cora PPM); regularly measures Value of Work Done (VOWD) and maintains SAP/Cora alignment through the Cost Estimating Structure (CES) and Work Breakdown Structure; manages contingency and undistributed costs, updates risk impacts in the FFC and control budgets, and manages the project CAPEX funding strategy.
Schedule Management
- Develops and owns the baselined Project Master Schedule with Basis of Schedule and WBS; actively tracks performance against schedule and the critical path; embeds Rules-of-Credit progress measurement in design and construction contracts, tracks design deliverables progress, and aligns contractor Level 4+ schedules with the project WBS.
- Runs schedule integrity and logic checks (DCMA 14-point assessment); manages internal/external constraints and interdependencies with other projects; implements, manages, and reports schedule contingency; produces look-aheads, variance and progress reports, critical and near-critical activity tracking, and milestone reporting.
Risk & Opportunity Management
- Develops and maintains the project Risk Management Plan (why, how, who, when) consistent with the client’s risk management guideline, ISO 31000, and PMI/PMBOK practice, including a defined RACI for all risk activities; performs the preliminary risk assessment during Project Preparation and builds the first risk register from prior-project lessons learned.
- Plans and facilitates recurring risk identification workshops from CD through Handover. Pre-workshop document review (scope, estimate, schedule, contract, assumptions, stakeholders), risk questionnaires, and expert interviews. Managing attendees and bias to secure high-quality inputs; maintains the risk register with structured Cause–Risk–Impact statements, named risk owners, mitigation/response actions, and risk impact windows, and qualitatively scores likelihood and cost/schedule/quality impact against the client’s risk scoring matrix.
- Supports Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA), including Monte Carlo cost and schedule analysis where required by project classification; keeps cost and schedule cont