Strategic IT Project Manager

Job Details

Job Title: Strategic IT Project Manager – Enterprise Case Management Modernization
Location: Denver, Colorado
Work Arrangement: Hybrid
Onsite Requirement: In-office once a week, ideally on Tuesdays
Employment Type: Contract
Estimated Start Date: 11/30/2026
Estimated End Date: 12/31/2027
Estimated Duration: Approximately 13 months
Schedule: Monday – Friday
Working Hours: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST
Hours Per Day: 8
Hours Per Week: 40
Travel: Regular in-state travel may be required, including travel to rural locations, especially during training and rollout

Position Summary:

Strategic Project Manager to lead the replacement of a legacy probation case management system

This role bridges technical infrastructure, legislative and policy compliance, and the daily experience of probation officers, judicial staff, and justice-involved individuals

The position will operate within a multi-level governance framework, supporting executive decision-making, managing stakeholder alignment, and facilitating issue escalation across business, technology, and judicial leadership

The project is a multi-year, high-visibility modernization that touches probation operations statewide

The new system must preserve critical data exchanges with partner agencies without interruption

Success means more than a working system

It means probation officers spend less time on data entry and more time with clients, supervisors get reliable data for decisions, and justice-involved individuals experience clearer, fairer, and more consistent supervision

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in project management, information systems, public administration, criminal justice, business, or a related field

• Additional relevant experience may substitute for the degree year for year

Required Skills / Experience:

• Ten years of progressively responsible project management experience

• At least five years leading large, complex technology implementations with multiple vendors and stakeholder groups

• Demonstrated experience managing a multi-year schedule

• Experience leading enterprise system replacements that included data migration and organizational change management

• Ability to pass a criminal background check

Preferred Skills / Experience

• Project Management Professional (PMP), PgMP, or equivalent certification

• Agile and change management certifications

• Experience with Waterfall Project methodology

• Experience applying Waterfall governance and procurement controls in conjunction with Agile solution delivery

• Experience implementing case management systems for courts, probation, parole, corrections, or other justice agencies

• Experience with state government or criminal justice information exchanges

• Experience with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or configurable SaaS platform implementations in the public sector

• Experience working with geographically distributed users in both urban and rural settings

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Project and program management: command of predictive, Agile, and hybrid methods, and the judgment to choose between them

• Systems thinking: ability to understand how technology, policy, operations, and people interact, and to see downstream effects of design choices

• Communication: clear, plain-language writing and speaking for audiences ranging from judges and legislators to frontline officers and vendors

• Facilitation and influence: ability to build consensus among stakeholders with competing priorities, without direct authority

• Empathy for users: genuine interest in how probation officers and clients experience the system, and the discipline to design around their needs

• Analytical skills: ability to interpret data, evaluate trade-offs, and make sound decisions under uncertainty

• Integrity and discretion: sound handling of confidential criminal justice information and sensitive organizational matters

• Resilience: steady leadership through ambiguity, setbacks, and the pressures of a high-visibility public project

• Benefits orientation: understanding of business outcomes and the ability to support measurement of adoption and value realization objectives

• Governance and executive engagement: ability to operate within complex governance structures, prepare executive decision materials, facilitate escalations, and support leadership decision-making across multiple organizational levels

• Change management: ability to support organizational readiness, stakeholder engagement, communications, training, and user adoption activities

Job Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership and Governance

• Lead the full project lifecycle, from requirements and procurement through design, build, data migration, testing, statewide rollout, and decommissioning of the legacy system

• Develop and maintain the master schedule, budget, scope baseline, and benefits realization plan

• Translate strategic goals for probation into clear project objectives and measurable success criteria

Vendor and Procurement Management

• Support the solicitation, evaluation, and selection of a solution vendor under state procurement rules

• Hold vendors and internal teams accountable for quality, schedule, and cost

Legislative and Policy Compliance

• Track applicable statutes, directives, and probation standards affecting system requirements, and build them into the solution

• Coordinate with legal, policy, and research staff so the system supports required reporting, risk and needs assessments, and evidence-based practices

Stakeholder Engagement and Change Management

• Engage chief probation officers, officers, supervisors, judges, court staff, and partner agencies across geographically distributed judicial districts, urban and rural alike

• Lead human-centered design activities, such as field observation, user testing, and feedback loops with frontline staff

• Direct organizational change management, training, communications, and go-live support

• Make sure the client-facing parts of the system are accessible, plain-language, and equitable for justice-involved individuals

Risk, Quality, and Reporting

• Identify, track, and mitigate risks and issues

• Escalate decisions promptly

• Plan cutover so probation supervision is never interrupted

• Report status, risks, and outcomes to leadership

Working Conditions

• Hybrid position based in Denver

• Candidate must be local

• In-office attendance required once a week, ideally on Tuesdays

• Regular in-state travel may be required, including travel to rural locations, especially during training and rollout

• Occasional work outside normal hours is expected around go-live and cutover events

• Monday – Friday

• 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST

Ideal Candidate

The strongest candidate is likely a senior strategic IT Project Manager or Program Manager with at least 10 years of progressive project management experience, including significant ownership of large, multi-year enterprise system replacements