Senior Project Manager

Us: Toolhouse is a digital marketing agency, focusing on solving complex problems in innovative ways for some of the biggest healthcare companies in the world. We are technical experts and creative artists, and we take pride in our unique ability to marry those passions into meaningful solutions for our clients. We are a tight-knit team of can-do thinkers and doers that believes in building momentum, taking risks and finding our fun. Our clients are leaders in their industry, with high expectations that we take pride in exceeding.

You: You have an innate passion for all things digital, a love of learning, and a zest for trying new things. Things that warm your heart: having a plan, helping others succeed, diving into the unknown to find answers (and devise a plan), and a well-worn hoodie. You are conscientious but nimble, and you’re not afraid to fail if it means you learn faster and you learn more (especially because you always have a mitigation plan!). You act thoughtfully with a constant eye to driving progress. You are a natural leader by action, shedding light on the path of next steps and bringing structure to the masses everywhere you go..

The Job: The Senior Project Manager will be the glue for any projects they manage, ensuring that all aspects of the project are tightly coordinated, well thought out, and effectively delivered.
The Senior Project Manager is responsible for hands-on project management, overseeing and directing multiple projects at a time, ranging from short-term discreet initiatives to longer-term highly complex and integrated endeavors, and ensuring that projects meet or exceed internal team and client expectations. This role will facilitate the completion of projects, on time and on budget, proactively managing details from inception to delivery. This includes interfacing with the internal project team regularly by setting up and driving team meetings, project documentation, and ensuring that the right information is communicated to the right team member (internal or client) as needed. The Senior Project Manager will be responsible for creating detailed project plans, identifying and addressing project risks, and, in conjunction with our resourcing team, ensuring project team members meet their deliverables in the hours allotted.

The Location: You get to live in Bellingham, Washington. Our offices are right on Bellingham Bay, steps from the beach and close enough to watch the sea otters without leaving your desk. Nestled between the rugged Cascade mountains to the east and the San Juan islands to the west, we sit at the doorstep of endless outdoor fun. Do you like to snowboard? Sail? Shop? Bike? Run? Hike? Fish? Listen to live music? So do we. And that’s just on Wednesday. Bellingham is only 45 minutes from Mount Baker or Vancouver, BC and 90 minutes from Seattle. We work hard, we play hard, and we have a great view.

We offer full benefits including medical, dental, vision, and 401K contribution matching.

Responsibilities

• Drive success of each and every assigned project by ensuring a quality of delivery for both the client and for Toolhouse, within the defined parameters of the project
• Gain a deep understanding of client business objectives, product offerings and project objectives to effectively drive the success of the project
• Review and contribute to the creation of project proposals and Statements of Work
• Develop and maintain positive client and client-vendor relationships at all levels of the client organization and serve as the client point-of-contact for day-to-day project-related requests
• Responsible for ensuring timely delivery of all project deliverables
• Communicate with and support the Client Services team by proactively identifying, mitigating, and driving project issues and risks to closure
• Define and document detailed project plans, gathering input from team leads as needed, including project tasks, milestones, dependencies, and expected levels of effort
• Build and maintain project Gantt charts
• Work with the Resourcing team to convert project plans to project schedules, based on staffing and capacity projections
• Drive project momentum and solution-oriented collaboration in the face of common project challenges (timing, ambiguity, changing priorities, etc)
• Develop project status reports and lead project status meetings
• Carefully track and manage multiple project dependencies; keep all stakeholders apprised of dependency status
• Facilitate effective and efficient meetings and discussions with clearly stated objectives, ensuring they stay on track and lead to a solution, decision, and/or next steps
• Work closely and collaboratively with Account Directors to communicate with clients and project teams on an ongoing basis and ensure changing resource and project requirements are addressed – including identification and documentation of any changes in scope
• Proactively identify project budget and timeline issues and work with the project team to mitigate risk or define solutions
• Manage project change requests
• Work with the Resourcing team to ensure projects are appropriately staffed
• Be the linchpin for your project team, clearly communicating dates, next steps, decisions, actions, etc and supporting them through task tracking and unblocking activities
• Drive retrospectives as a look back on project successes and failures; identify action items and drive improvements to course correct or to benefit future Toolhouse projects
• Proactively identify and act on opportunities to optimize project processes/documentation/communication for efficiencies and quality

Required Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of senior project management experience in interactive projects, preferably in digital marketing-related fields or working with creative teams
• Excellent communication skills with internal and external audiences at all levels
• Strong analytical abilities and the ability to carefully manage details
• Able to break down complex work into manageable and actionable tasks, decisions, outcomes
• Ability to work with a diverse range of personalities
• Must be able to work effectively in a fast-paced environment, juggling several projects at once
• Ability to focus and work under pressure during tight deadlines with humor, tact and professionalism
• Ability to anticipate issues, roadblocks, gaps, and risks, then set mitigation plans in place or course correct before they occur
• Excellent time management and organizational skills
• Excellent at prioritizing work, with a great instinct for what moves the needle vs lower impact tasks
• Advanced knowledge of project management tools and methodologies, including risk management, scope management, change management, as well as the proven ability to identify and resolve issues, and develop detailed work plans and specifications
• Excellent meeting management and facilitation skills; able to keep meetings on track, set and drive agendas, and guide the team forward from places of uncertainty or ambiguity, to tangible outcomes and decisions
• Demonstrated ability to motivate staff and project teams, inspire teamwork, and take a leadership role
• Advanced knowledge and experience with software development life cycles, web technologies, creative design processes, and preferably marketing and digital strategy projects
• Passion for technology projects and/or working in a digital agency environment
• Highly desirable: experience in an agnecy environment or similiar working across multiple projects simultaneously