Strategic Project Manager

Roles/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 ICON/JPOD.
• Develop and maintain the master schedule, budget, scope baseline, and benefits realization plan.
• Translate the Branch's 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 Colorado statutes, Chief Justice 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 all 23 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.

Mandatory Skills:

1. 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.
2. Ten years of progressively responsible project management experience, including at least five years leading large, complex technology implementations with multiple vendors and stakeholder groups.
3. Demonstrated experience managing a multi-year schedule.
4. Experience leading enterprise system replacements that included data migration and organizational change management.
5. Ability to pass a criminal background check.
6. Project and program management: command of predictive, Agile, and hybrid methods, and the judgment to choose between them.
7. Systems thinking: ability to understand how technology, policy, operations, and people interact, and to see downstream effects of design choices.
8. Communication: clear, plain-language writing and speaking for audiences ranging from judges and legislators to frontline officers and vendors.
9. Facilitation and influence: ability to build consensus among stakeholders with competing priorities, without direct authority.
10. Empathy for users: genuine interest in how probation officers and clients experience the system, and the discipline to design around their needs.
11. Analytical skills: ability to interpret data, evaluate trade-offs, and make sound decisions under uncertainty.
12. Integrity and discretion: sound handling of confidential criminal justice information and sensitive organizational matters.
13. Resilience: steady leadership through ambiguity, setbacks, and the pressures of a high-visibility public project.
14. Benefits orientation: understanding of business outcomes and the ability to support measurement of adoption and value realization objectives.
15. 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.
16. Change management: ability to support organizational readiness, stakeholder engagement, communications, training, and user adoption activities.

Desirable Skills:

1. Project Management Professional (PMP), PgMP, or equivalent certification.
2. Agile and change management certifications.
3. Experience with Waterfall Project methodology.
4. Experience applying Waterfall governance and procurement controls in conjunction with Agile solution delivery.
5. Experience implementing case management systems for courts, probation, parole, corrections, or other justice agencies.
6. Familiarity with Colorado state government, the Colorado Judicial Branch, or CICJIS data exchanges.
7. Experience with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or configurable SaaS platform implementations in the public sector.
8. Experience working with geographically distributed users in both urban and rural settings.