Project Lead

Working as part of the Delivery Team and reporting to the Outsourcing Manager, the Project Lead will be involved in the end-to-end process of fully outsourced/packaged projects - from the setup, running and delivery. 

The role requires developing and managing effective relationships with multiple stakeholders and contributors - Packagers, Project Management, Publishing, Design and Media, Digital, Rights & Permissions and Production to ensure projects are delivered on time, to brief and within budget.

The Project Lead will have day-to-day responsibility for overseeing the delivery (through management of packagers) on both print and digital components. The Project Lead is responsible for driving and directing the packager assigned to the project, overseeing schedules, budgets, and delivery of assigned projects, ensuring quality and value targets are set and met according to established requirements.

The Project Lead will work with the Outsourcing Manager to build and maintain effective workflows and best practice for packaged projects.

Key tasks:

Budget

• Pre-project approval: Interrogate and sense-check quotes in order to ensure accurate costs are provided for project approval.
• Post project approval:  Maintain an overview of all project costs throughout the project.
• Post project approval:  Manage and administer budgets for assigned projects, throughout the life of these projects, ensuring that costs are optimized. This may involve negotiation with freelancers/suppliers.

Project Management

• Ensure projects are clearly and comprehensively scoped before briefing packager. Interrogate scope with internal team to make sure there are no gaps or ambiguities for the packager.
• Take ownership of the end-to-end project management process for assigned projects, including managing content, liaising with stakeholders, managing development, managing and signing off on proofs/agreed checkpoints, processing invoices and contracts, and other project processing and documentation.
• Work with project stakeholders in a global environment (including regional team members and  packagers)  to ensure that projects are delivered with materials of the highest quality, that the product meets the needs of the market/customer, and is on schedule and within budget.
• Arrange and facilitate project kick off meetings. Ensure suppliers are fully onboarded at the start of every project
• Attend and contribute in regular project meetings with packager and all project team members and project stakeholders; including the objectives, schedules and deadlines, detailed budgets, setting and agreeing deadlines and next steps, identifying any blockers and risks, and all other project parameters and constraints; throughout the life of the project, from kick-off to delivery.
• Troubleshoot and respond to issues quickly and to acknowledge, manage and escalate risks to reduce impact on time/cost/quality.
• Maintain a culture of transparency across project teams and stakeholders and ensure delivery dates, project goals, dependencies and risks are clear and understood.

Schedules

• Work with packagers to ensure that project schedules are accurate and account for all dependencies. Take into account the requirements and needs of other stakeholders: Sales, Rights and Permissions, Design, Media, Production and Digital Producers (as appropriate).
• Monitor schedules to ensure that packagers are delivering tasks as outlined in schedule (on time and to agreed milestones). Troubleshoot issues

Resource

• Work with packagers including all admin, packager briefs, answering packager queries, and feeding back on quality of work.
• In conjunction with the Outsourcing Manager,  determine when suppliers/packager should be contracted and when.

Technical

• Input into and maintain processes to ensure best practice and adherence to Macmillan Education’s key procedures for production and design are being adhered to.
• To coordinate the appropriate sign-off and archiving for all components using Macmillan systems.
• To ensure all current information on project status is fully maintained on all company systems and to input into company systems from a publishing and project management perspective, as and when required.
• To ensure all current information on project status is fully maintained in Macmillan systems as per the approved workflow.

Editorial

• Post project-approval:  Work with suppliers/packagers including all admin, packager briefs, answering packager queries, and providing feed-back on quality of work.
• Pre and post project-approval:  Provide input (where necessary) into content for projects, including (but not limited to) cultural sensitivities, regional differences, artwork/media illustrations, language/grammar, or other editorial or content requirements.

Legal/Contracting

• Post project-approval:  to brief and raise any required contracts in a timely manner.

Additional Duties

• Drive innovation and quality improvement.
• Any other reasonable duties as required by the Head or Delivery or Outsourcing Manager.

Qualifications, Experience, and Skills:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent combination of education and experience
• A recognized ELT/EFL qualification and/or teaching experience an advantage
• Editorial content delivery experience within Publishing (ELT or Curriculum Education preferred)
• Experience of working with company systems and data and willingness to learn and fully exploit all such systems
• Experience of supplier/freelancer management
• Experience of working with packagers on end to end projects is considered an advantage
• Knowledge and experience of managing multiple components in a publishing environment
• Knowledge of publishing processes for print and digital
• Knowledge of related technologies and systems
• Commercial and financial awareness
• Strong organisational and editorial skills
• The ability to manage a varied and demanding workload
• The ability to manage and lead a cross functional team to deliver a project
• The ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team
• Strong communication and negotiation skills
• A positive attitude and commitment to aims of the department
• Broad understanding of the global ELT market
• Flexible approach and the ability to adapt to fast-paced, changing environments
• Ability to deal with and resolve ambiguity
• Eye for detail and commitment to accuracy

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