Practice Lead, Project Management

Key Responsibilities

• Input to and support on the strategic direction of the Project Management practice. 
• Embed and consistently reinforce Codec’s consulting standards, professional behaviours and leadership expectations across the Project Management practice 
• Build a high-performing, commercially successful and scalable project delivery function. 
• Lead adoption of AI-enabled project and programme management practices, ensuring the practice uses approved tools, standards and reusable approaches to improve quality, productivity and consistency 
• Drive consistency, quality and best practices across all projects and programmes. 
• Create reusable assets, templates and frameworks to improve efficiency and delivery quality. 
• Partner with other Practice Leads and business leaders to support organisational goals and delivery excellence. 
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement. 
• Maintain a succession and leadership pipeline for critical Project, Programme and Portfolio Management roles. 

• Provide oversight and governance across project and programme delivery within the practice. 
• Ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget and to the required quality standards or escalated where needed 
• Support Project Managers in managing complex risks, issues, dependencies and stakeholder relationships. 
• Act as an escalation point for significant delivery challenges ensuring timely communication to the Chief Delivery Officer 
• Monitor project performance, utilisation, profitability and customer outcomes. 
• Drive proactive risk management and effective delivery governance across the project portfolio. 
• Ensure project management practices align with client expectations and Codec delivery standards. 
• Maintain a visible leadership presence across delivery teams, regularly engaging employees and customers to reinforce expectations, gather feedback and build confidence. 

• Lead, coach and develop all member of the Project Management as visible, accountable client and people leaders, aligned with the leadership capability model established by the Director 
• Ensure performance reviews, career development discussions and succession planning activities are proactively managed, Support employee engagement, wellbeing and professional growth within the team. 
• Build capability through mentoring, knowledge sharing and professional development initiatives. 
• Implement the organisational career framework, progression criteria and capability expectations within the practice, providing evidence-based recommendations on promotion and succession 
• Identify capability, behavioural and performance gaps early and take timely, constructive action in partnership with the Director and People team. 
• Promote collaboration and knowledge sharing across practices and delivery teams. 

• Own practice utilisation and resource planning, ensuring effective deployment of project management capability. 
• Work closely with Delivery Leaders and Practice Leads to match resources to client demand. 
• Support workforce planning, recruitment and onboarding activities. 
• Monitor practice performance against utilisation, revenue and profitability targets. 
• Contribute to forecasting, budgeting and capacity planning activities. 
• Drive operational efficiencies that support sustainable practice growth 
• Use delivery telemetry and tooling outputs to identify behavioural, capability and performance trends and translate these into coaching and improvement actions 
• Identify recurring organisational delivery and leadership issues, escalate systemic themes to the Director and CDO, and lead agreed improvement actions 

• Build trusted advisor relationships with clients and key stakeholder groups. 
• Support customer success through strong delivery oversight and proactive engagement. 
• Participate in executive-level client discussions where required. 
• Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and successful project outcomes. 
• Identify opportunities to expand services and strengthen client relationships. 
• Escalate strategically significant, sensitive or systemic delivery concerns promptly and support joint intervention with the Director and CDO. 

• Support sales and business development activities by providing project delivery expertise. 
• Contribute to proposals, estimates, Statements of Work and project planning activities. 
• Participate in customer presentations, workshops and solution discussions. 
• Provide delivery governance input into bids and complex opportunities. 
• Ensure proposed solutions can be delivered effectively, efficiently and profitably. 

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Significant experience managing complex projects, programmes and delivery portfolios. 
• Strong understanding of project management methodologies, including Agile, Waterfall and hybrid delivery approaches. 
• Proven people leadership experience, including coaching, mentoring and performance management. 
• Strong commercial awareness with experience managing utilisation, forecasting and project profitability. 
• Experience operating within a consulting, professional services or technology delivery environment. 
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills. 
• Ability to influence senior leaders, customers and cross-functional teams. 
• Strong risk management, governance and problem-solving capabilities. 

• Project management certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, AgilePM or equivalent. 
• Experience leading transformations or practice development initiatives. 
• Experience delivering Microsoft or enterprise technology projects. 
• Experience supporting pre-sales and business development activities. 

• Success in this role will be measured through: 
• Practice utilisation and profitability. 
• Successful delivery of projects and programmes. 
• Customer satisfaction and retention. 
• Employee engagement and retention within the practice. 
• Capability growth and development of the team. 
• Improvement of delivery standards, governance and operational efficiency. 
• Contribution to business growth and strategic objectives. 

• Reports To: Director of Consulting and Delivery Leadership. 
• Direct Reports: Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, Portfolio Managers. 
• Key Stakeholders: Director of Consulting & Delivery Leadership, Chief Delivery Officer, Practice Leads, Sales, Operations, Finance, HR, Technical Leads, Customers and Executive Sponsors. 
• This role holds accountability for the overall performance, capability, utilisation and commercial success of the Project Management practice while ensuring delivery excellence across the organisation.