Senior Project Manager, Extended Access Project - 18-month fixed term at Parliamentary Counsel Office, Wellington - Wairarapa

Mō tēnei tūranga mahi | About this role

$121,518 - $148,522

Build a New Digital Services Team to Reimagine Access to NZ Legislation

Are you a forward-thinking professional with a passion for building digital services? We're seeking a dynamic Project Manager to play a pivotal role in our effort to reimagine the access and use of NZ legislation. And not to worry if you've never heard of the Parliamentary Counsel Office | Te Tari Tohutohu Pāremata or thought twice about how legislation gets produced. If you have the right skills and a can-do attitude, we'll be interested in talking with you. If you love standing up new data-driven experiences and have a passion for open access information... you'll find this fascinating!

What we do

At the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) we work with government agencies to draft and publish legislation for New Zealand. If the Government wants to create, remove, or update a law… we draft the Government Bill that gets debated and voted on at Parliament, and we then publish the resulting law on the NZ Legislation website. Ultimately, we serve the people of New Zealand by working hard to produce law that is easy to find, use, and understand.

Your role

In this 18-month fixed-term position, you'll be building a new team to innovate with both how we gather secondary legislation from 100+ Government Agencies and how we make all legislation available through online channels. We've recently completed a proof-of-concept to aggregate legislation and turn the collected data into a demo API. Your job will be to build a project and vendor team to turn this into a pilot service in the cloud, roll out guidelines and standards to agencies, and then redevelop legislation.govt.nz to support improved experiences. We have staff who have worked on similar projects before, but we need you to develop the product vision, user focus, and agile approach to make it happen.

What you'll do

• Gather Your Team: Recruit and procure the right mix of talent to innovate and deliver. You'll need product owner, technical, and agency engagement leads to get you started.
• Agency Engagement: Connect with agency contacts to gain their support of new guidelines and standards for the publishing of secondary legislation. Your influencing skills will be key.
• Technical Direction: Ensure your team can provide the technical and subject matter direction to vendors who will build the aggregation system. Your expertise will help them navigate complexity in the government technical environment.
• Reimagining Digital Experiences: Rethink how legislation is accessed and used on legislation.govt.nz and beyond. User-focused design processes and emerging technologies will open new doors.
• Agile Development Leadership: Your vendor team might be doing the actual design and development work, but you will set the scene with expectations for experimentation and iteration that will result in trusted, secure, and reliable services that our customers will love.
• Future Planning: Assess options and requirements for rolling out full production services. 

What you'll bring

• Product Insight: You have a knack for envisioning the future and bringing digital products to life.
• Project Powerhouse: You are a deeply experienced project manager and know how to balance the needs of Prince2-style governance with Agile Scrum developments.
• User-Centric Approach: You put users at the heart of design decisions, creating experiences that matter.
• Technical Acumen: You may not have been a developer, but you know your JSON from your Java. Your technical experience means you are involved in the technical discussions.
• Creative Spirit: You're not afraid to challenge norms and redefine ways of doing things for the better.
• Personal Savvy: You know how to connect with people, maintain team energy, and help people navigate those moments of complexity and challenge.

 Opportunities like this don't come around often for the experienced digital professional, so don't miss out!

How to apply

See www.pco.govt.nz/current-vacancies for the position description and how to apply.

Applications must include a completed PCO application form (please download it from our website), a CV, a cover letter that explains why you are a good match for this role, and be sent to recruitment@pco.govt.nz.

Applications close 10am Monday 2 October 2023.