Implementation Project Manager

Implementation Project Manager Reporting to: Head of Implementation   Department: Implementation Salary range £55 - £60k per annum Role Summary The Implementation Project Manager is responsible for the end-to-end delivery of customer implementation projects across the MV Platform, ensuring projects are delivered to agreed scope, timescales, budget and quality standards. Reporting to the Head of Implementation, the role leads day-to-day project delivery from mobilisation and discovery through configuration, testing, training, go-live and hypercare. It provides customers and internal teams with clear plans, effective governance and proactive communication throughout the implementation lifecycle. The Project Manager owns the overall project plan, governance, reporting and commercial delivery, working closely with the Implementation Consultant who leads functional implementation. The role coordinates technical and wider business contributions, escalating delivery challenges and resource conflicts to the Head of Implementation. Key ResponsibilitiesProject Mobilisation and Planning ·      Lead the handover from Sales into Implementation, confirming contractual commitments, scope, assumptions, deliverables and customer expectations. ·      Establish project objectives, success criteria, responsibilities, governance and an agreed implementation approach with the customer. ·      Create and maintain an integrated project plan covering activities, milestones, resources, dependencies and customer responsibilities. ·      Lead project kick-off and agree realistic delivery commitments with internal teams and customer stakeholders. Delivery Governance and Reporting ·      Apply MV implementation standards and maintain project plans, RAID logs, action trackers, decision records and status reports. ·      Lead project meetings and coordinate steering committees, ensuring decisions and actions have clear owners and due dates. ·      Monitor progress against the agreed baseline, identify emerging risks and develop recovery plans where required. ·      Provide accurate reporting to the customer and Head of Implementation, escalating risks, issues and decisions promptly with recommended actions. Customer and Stakeholder Management ·      Act as the primary customer contact for project delivery, building trusted relationships and managing expectations throughout implementation. ·      Agree communication arrangements and keep stakeholders informed of progress, dependencies, changes and decisions. ·      Constructively challenge unrealistic commitments and resolve delivery concerns, involving the Head of Implementation where senior support is required.   Key Responsibilities ContinuedImplementation Delivery and Coordination ·      Coordinate discovery, environment set-up, configuration, connectivity, integrations, data migration where applicable, testing and training within the overall project plan. ·      Work with Implementation Consultants, Product, Engineering, QA and DevOps to confirm deliverables, owners, estimates and dependencies. ·      Track customer inputs, third-party dependencies and internal commitments, addressing blockers and maintaining delivery momentum. ·      Forecast project resource requirements and highlight capacity conflicts to the Head of Implementation for prioritisation. ·      Coordinate specialist delivery while retaining accountability for the overall project outcome and ensuring functional and technical owners validate their work. Scope and Commercial Management ·      Maintain an agreed scope baseline and manage proposed changes through formal impact assessment and approval. ·      Track project effort, costs and forecast completion against agreed budgets, highlighting variances and corrective actions. ·      Assess the effect of changes on timescales, resources, cost and contractual commitments before securing the required approvals. ·      Maintain evidence of deliverable acceptance and commercial milestones, supporting invoicing and escalating commercial matters beyond delegated authority. Testing and Operational Readiness ·      Agree testing milestones, entry and exit criteria, customer responsibilities and acceptance arrangements with the relevant delivery leads. ·      Monitor customer acceptance testing and defect resolution, ensuring outstanding issues have owners, priorities and agreed resolution plans. ·      Coordinate readiness reviews covering functional and technical readiness, customer training, operational processes and support arrangements. ·      Ensure go-live decisions are supported by evidence, documented acceptance of residual risks and approval from the authorised customer and MV stakeholders.   Key Responsibilities ContinuedGo Live Hypercare and Closure ·      Coordinate the cutover plan, deployment activities, communications, contingency arrangements and go-live support coverage. ·      Manage hypercare governance, tracking issues and actions with the functional and technical leads until agreed exit criteria are met. ·      Ensure a structured handover to BAU Support and Customer Success, including documentation, known issues and outstanding commitments. ·      Secure project acceptance and closure, review delivery performance and capture lessons learned with the customer and internal teams. Continuous Improvement ·      Contribute practical improvements to implementation methods, templates, reporting and reusable delivery assets. ·      Share lessons learned and customer feedback to improve delivery predictability, efficiency and the customer experience. ·      Support consistent delivery practices across the team and provide project insight to inform portfolio planning. Skills and Experience ·      Experience managing customer-facing software, SaaS or technology implementation projects across the full delivery lifecycle. ·      Proven ability to manage scope, plans, budgets, risks, dependencies and change across multiple concurrent projects. ·      Strong customer relationship, stakeholder-management and communication skills, including reporting to senior stakeholders and steering committees. ·      Ability to coordinate multidisciplinary teams and third parties, securing commitments and resolving delivery challenges without direct line-management authority. ·      Understanding of configurable cloud platforms, environment readiness, integrations, data migration, testing, training and transition into support. ·      Strong commercial awareness and experience managing project effort, forecasts, contractual deliverables and change control. ·      Experience within banking, building societies, financial services or fintech would be advantageous. ·      A recognised project management qualification, such as PRINCE2, APM or PMP, would be advantageous.   Key Behaviours ·      Accountable and organised, taking ownership of delivery commitments and following actions through to completion. ·      Customer-focused and pragmatic, balancing customer needs with agreed scope, capacity and commercial commitments. ·      Proactive and transparent, raising risks early and communicating clearly with a no-surprises approach. ·      Collaborative and confident in challenging assumptions, resolving conflict and securing decisions. ·      Calm under pressure, particularly during testing, go-live and other critical delivery periods. ·      Committed to continuous improvement and sharing learning across the Implementation team. How Success Is MeasuredDelivery Performance ·      Projects achieve agreed scope, milestones, budgets and acceptance criteria, with controlled and approved changes. ·      Risks, dependencies and resource requirements are identified early, with effective mitigation and reliable forecasts. Customer Experience ·      Customers receive clear communication, understand their responsibilities and provide positive implementation feedback. ·      Go-lives and hypercare are well coordinated, with customer readiness confirmed and minimal avoidable disruption. Operational Effectiveness ·      Governance and reporting are accurate, timely and consistently applied, enabling effective oversight by the Head of Implementation. ·      Projects transition cleanly into BAU Support and Customer Success, with agreed ownership of outstanding commitments. Business Contribution ·      Commercial commitments are managed effectively, reducing unplanned effort, rework and scope growth. ·      Lessons learned lead to practical improvements in delivery efficiency, consistency and scalability.