News / Events

June 2010

Sakai is looking for a new breed of Project Manager. The vibrant, broadly distributed, very diverse next generation Sakai project needs a PM who can coordinate an agile development team with a focus on inclusion, participatory design and broad community engagement. If you are excited by this opportunity to explore new territory as part of the Sakai team, please apply here to the position entitled Sakai 3 Project Manager.

The project manager will be a line report to the Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation, but will be accountable to the Sakai 3 Steering Committee for the success of the project.” Under the above governance, the Project Manager is responsible for providing senior leadership, strategic direction, and technical expertise. S/he will aggregate and manage a team of IT professionals from multiple universities to meet the goals of the Sakai 3 Project, coordinating the planning, design, and implementation activities to deliver a production-ready Sakai product. In consultation with the Director, the incumbent defines the deliverables, timelines, priorities, and milestones of the project, leads the activities of the software development team, and coordinates with both academic and industry partners.

The incumbent is also responsible for refining the budget as the detailed plans are formulated and negotiating variations to resource commitments (financial and people) to ensure the successful progression of the project, and reporting to funding organizations for multiple projects.

These tasks require a combination of expertise in managing software projects, an understanding of formal software process, knowledge of the technological aspects of agile and open source software development, and strong communication skills. This is a fixed term position, ideally full-time, estimated for a duration of 12 months.

Job duties

1. Leads and coordinates software design, development, and testing teams
2. Requirements analysis and communication
3. Liaison and contract negotiation with outside organizations who will be partners or customers to reach contractual agreement on scope, schedule, deliverables, intellectual property considerations, and financial compensation.
4. Develops required materials including technical specifications, project and resource plans, project updates, presentation materials.
5. Liaises with current and potential project partners, Sakai community members, and external partners
6. Risk assessment and reporting
7. Provides expert technical leadership to the development team
8. Coordinates and tracks project deliverables from multiple teams by defining, implementing, and updating a project reporting process
9. Assists in managing financial resources for projects
10. Develops short term and long-term project plans, priorities and objectives

To ensure successful completion of projects the incumbent is expected to apply expertise specific to coordination of software development. S/he will apply communication, analytical, and negotiation skills to ensure success in the acquisition of resources. The incumbent will be independently responsible for achieving results and determining the degree of collaboration and direction required on a case by case basis as per the above governance.

The Sakai 3 project team is distributed across several continents and works together virtually. The Project Manager may work from any location. Because of time zone differences, work hours may be irregular.

Travel is required.

Qualifications

1. A minimum of ten years experience in both management of software projects and functional management of software development teams.
2. A background combining post-graduate education, hands-on design or development experience, and project management at a senior level, including experience in managing the business aspects of software projects, and demonstrated leadership and coaching skills.
3. Prior experience managing staff.
4. Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively and credibly.
5. A graduate degree in an area that covers project management as a topic of academic study (e.g., computer science, cognitive science, information studies, business, engineering) or the equivalent in experience (more than 3 years managing a major multi-partner project).
6. Expertise in the areas of open source software, user experience design, agile software methodologies, and accessible technology.
7. Demonstrated experience successfully managing software projects in a virtual environment.
8. Desirable: knowledge of the Sakai system and Community.

If you are excited by this opportunity to explore new territory as part of the Sakai team, please send a concise CV and an application addressing each of the qualifications individually and indicate your full-time/part-time availability by midnight Saturday, 12th June 2010 to Dr Philip Uys (puys@csu.edu.au).

Staff from institutions using Sakai are welcome to apply and a secondment from such institutions as their contribution to the project will be considered.

Note: Interviews could be held as early as Thursday, 17th June.