Senior Quality Manager- IT Project

Senior Quality Manager- IT Project:

The primary purpose of the Senior Quality Manager is to coordinate, assess, and oversee Project Quality Management for a large, complex IT modernization project that affects all counties

Project Quality Management includes overseeing all project delivery, deliverables, vendor performance, process adherence, and to ensure the project and vendor(s) meet all Federal requirements necessary to maintain project Federal funding. This is a senior position, and the incumbent will be a member of the core project implementation team. The ideal candidate will work flexibly and comfortably as an active team contributor, in addition to being a leader and subject matter expert.

This role oversees and performs Project Quality Assurance, Quality Control, Continual Improvement, and other functions.

Quality Assurance:

• The Sr. Quality Manager will be responsible for ensuring that this large, complex project operates optimally and produces high quality outcomes and deliverables on all levels. This means that the Sr. Quality Manager will need to establish systems to monitor and report vendor performance, and overall project performance against the stated Project Objectives and Intended Outcomes. This will involve developing processes to capture data, quantify results, and track the project s attainment of the stated Project Objectives and Intended Outcomes. This information must be reported to Federal funding partners. Therefore, experience working with the US Health and Human Services (HHS) (including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and Administration for Children and Families (ACF)), as well as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), is a strong advantage for a candidate.
• The Sr. Quality Manager is also expected to develop and maintain a thorough understanding of all Federal, State and DHHS project management, privacy and security/data management, and quality management standards, practices, processes, policies, tools, delivery methodology, and expectations. This project will leverage both traditional/ waterfall and Agile delivery methodologies. Therefore, the Sr. Quality Manager is expected to have Expert level understanding of both PMI/PMBOK and Agile approaches to delivery.
• This role is also responsible for designing and actively managing the project Quality Management Plan, which includes the Quality Management Strategy that the Sr. Quality Manager will actively leverage to conduct Project Quality Management, and all responsibilities contained within this job description, throughout the project lifecycle.
• This role will be responsible for assessing vendor proposals which will include details regarding how the vendor proposes to develop an implementation design, develop solution(s) including interfaces/integrations, test the solution(s), and ensure customer satisfaction and project intended outcomes are accomplished. Therefore, experience assessing vendor proposals to large, complex IT modernization projects is an advantage.
• This role is also responsible for assessing vendor processes, including testing. Testing includes integration testing (estimated up to 10 interfaces), and End-to-End (E2E) testing (including regression, functional, data validation, system integration, load, or performance tests, etc.) Therefore, it is advantageous for candidates to have experience overseeing third-party vendors conduct all levels of testing, including integration and End-to-End testing.
• This positions is responsible for planning, preparing for, and coordinating the performance of User Acceptance Testing (UAT). This includes ensuring identified defects are prioritized and resolved by the vendor prior to agency approval of UAT results.
• This position additionally verifies all vendor deliverables are provided within the expected timeframes, formats, and contain the required level of detail sufficient to be evaluated in deliverable reviews. The Sr. Quality Manager assembles and documents vendor deliverable evaluation criteria as needed based on DHHS, State and Federal expectations/requirements, working with State Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The Sr. Quality Manager also coordinates deliverable reviews with State SMEs and monitors review and feedback Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Quality Control:

• This role is responsible for overseeing implementation vendor deliverable quality. These deliverables include vendor implementation strategies, implementation design documentation, testing documentation, testing results, defect management processes and outcomes, training materials and other communications, privacy and security documentation and management, and customer satisfaction.
• The Quality Manager also ensures high-quality software delivery by leading the State testing team responsible for planning, implementing, and automating quality assurance testing. Therefore, the development of all User Acceptance materials, and the execution of UAT that meets DHHS, State and Federal requirements, are included in the scope of this role.
• Responsibilities include collaborating with the vendor on the development of test plans, test cases, test automation, and reporting results. Experience with testing automation is a strong advantage for a candidate.

Continual Improvement:

• This role is responsible for performing as the primary interface with a third-party auditing organization and/ Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) team. The incumbent is expected to coordinate closely with IV&V and/ any internal auditing functions to:
• Proactively identify areas of improvement
• Generate solutions to improve quality, partnering with team members across the organization, as well as IV&V
• Identify owners and accountability to implement the generated solutions
• Track implementation of the solutions, and the generated improvements
• This role is also responsible for identifying vendor and vendor solution performance trends, aggregating and analyzing performance data, and recommending methods for improving design, processes, and delivery quality. This will include monitoring, identifying, and analyzing performance data in order to provide constructive feedback, maintain high-service levels, and increase production system efficiency.

Other Areas:

• This role involves supervision, organizing and directing work. This includes providing directions on work activities in accordance with organization goals; monitoring the work of team members to ensure timely, cost-effective completion of work; identifying required skill sets by role and development of a skills list for the team; creating and maintaining a resource plan that forecasts and plans resource needs for the testing team and communicating the resource plan to management. The incumbent is also expected to provide the team with constructive feedback; developing and fostering an effective team; and encouraging leadership and professional growth in team members as appropriate. This also includes supervising and evaluating subordinate staff; motivating team members and facilitating team meetings, identifying and analyzing problems, plans, tasks, and solutions; and ensuring proper use of assets.
• The ideal candidate will have excellent communication and facilitation skills. This role will include communicating with vendors, multiple State agencies, external agents, and a very large stakeholder community, in addition to the project team. These communications will include presentations to large and executive audiences. Given the technical expertise required for this role, the ideal candidate is exceptionally well versed at translating technical jargon to terms comfortable with different audiences and understanding, in advance, what communication approach will best match each audience.
• The Sr. Quality Manager will have expert level skills in developing and maintaining documentation in MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and MS Visio or other process documentation software.
• The Quality Manager will also have expert knowledge of SDLC, will ideally be familiar with ITIL and have ITIL Foundations certification, and will be Six Sigma certified.
• Experience in the healthcare industry and/ the government sector is a strong advantage. This role is expected to be a Subject Matter Expert, and can work independently based on expert knowledge of best practices and experience.