Case Planning and Operations Manager

At the TRA, you will work with investigators, expert case teams and senior leaders in our mission to defend UK economic interests against unfair international trade practice. You will take an active role to support the strategic delivery of a portfolio of cases. This role offers the chance to have a meaningful impact on UK industries, against the backdrop of international economic and trade policy.

The Portfolio Management Office (PMO) supports the Investigations Delivery Director (IDD), the Heads of Investigation (HOIs) and the investigation case teams in a number of important ways; one of the most vital being case planning and reporting, which is key to the TRA's future success in managing a growing, complex and unpredictable caseload, in a timely manner.

Improving case planning and reducing case length are business priorities for the TRA. The Case Planning and Operations Manager is an exciting new role which you will have the opportunity to shape, leading on this vital piece of work by expanding the PMO team's capability to ensure we meet this priority.

Key Accountabilities

The TRA is moving to an increasingly skills-based and flexible resourcing model - so the post-holder may work on a range of projects, to be agreed in line with both business need and individual development aims. The ideal candidate will be flexible and adaptable to deliver a varied workload but core responsibilities are expected to be as follows:

Delivery, leadership and guidance:

Lead on planning activity across the portfolio and work with case teams to support timely delivery. Support capability building and the use of best practice in planning and reporting. Provide expert advice for case team members. Support the Head of the PMO to communicate and build commitment to the TRA case planning, management and reporting vision and sense of purpose.

Case planning and scheduling:

Challenge and test case assumptions to ensure that plans are realistic and achievable. Continuously improve template case plans, including work breakdown structures. Support the case leads to identify options to optimise delivery. Look for and implement efficiencies that can be made within case plans, taking a risk based approach. Ensure case plans reflect current guidance and legislation and dovetail with compliance requirements, as well as TRA Plan and Dashboard/KPIs. Maintain portfolio delivery map and critical path to monitor case progress. Recognise and track interdependencies across cases.

Governance, monitoring and reporting:

Co-ordinate reporting from cases and provide analysis of performance. Challenge case leads where necessary to ensure consistency of RAG ratings. Monitor and analyse information, reporting progress, slippage and reasons for slippage. Develop a set of PMO case delivery KPIs which monitor case delivery performance. Work with other business units to improve case data recording and reporting.

Stakeholder management:

Manage and engage with a wide range of stakeholders. Ensure that stakeholder responsibilities and needs are understood and addressed.

Risk management:

Take the lead on risk management for the Investigations Directorate. Identify and monitor case and portfolio risks and escalate as appropriate. Work with case teams to ensure risks are articulated well and scored consistently across the portfolio. Lead the quarterly risk review meeting.

Tools/Tech:

Work with case teams to ensure TRAcer (TRA's MS Project for the Web/Power BI case planning and reporting tool) is used consistently. Collaborate with users and stakeholders to ensure future iterations of the tool deliver required benefits.

Coaching/mentoring:

Deploy leadership, engagement, coaching and influencing skills to improve project management skills and culture (including how to use TRAcer) across the investigations team.