Project Manager - UAT & Business Readiness

Stefanini Group•Deerfield, IL

2d•Remote

About The Position

Stefanini Group is looking for a Senior Project Manager, 3rd Party Vendor Testing & Business Readiness, to drive business readiness and execution across testing phases (SIT and UAT), as well as support cutover and deployment coordination for client's Enterprise Resource Planning and financial systems, with third-party vendors within the Foundation Program. This role ensures that business stakeholders, vendors, and cross-functional teams are prepared, aligned, and able to execute within defined testing windows, with a strong focus on test phase entry, execution quality, and exit readiness. For System Integration Testing (SIT), the role operates in partnership with the consulting partner, who leads SIT planning and execution. This role ensures that business readiness inputs and coordination with internal technical teams are aligned but does not directly manage SIT execution. This role specifically supports third-party vendors and trading partners that integrate with or utilize client's ERP and enterprise systems, ensuring their readiness to successfully execute testing, cutover, and operational transition. The role also supports broader GPO initiatives and business readiness activities required for separation and independence from other clients, ensuring operating teams are prepared to execute independently at go live.

Requirements

8–12+ years of experience in project management in complex, cross-functional environments.
Exposure to large-scale ERP or enterprise transformation programs.
Proven ability to coordinate global business stakeholders and vendor participation.
Strong understanding of business processes and end-to-end operational flows.
Proven ability to mobilize, influence, and hold cross-functional stakeholders accountable.
Comfort operating in complex, fast-paced, and ambiguous environments.

Nice To Haves

Drives business accountability and engagement in project execution.
Ensures readiness for phase entry, quality during execution, and integrity at exit.
Provides clear, structured, fact-based visibility into readiness and risk.
Effectively partners, influences, and collaborates with cross-functional and diverse teams without owning technical delivery.
Anticipates and mitigates risks impacting testing, cutover, and go-live readiness.

Responsibilities

Drive business readiness for entry into testing phases, ensuring required prerequisites are met.
Partner with the consulting partner leading SIT to validate business readiness inputs, ensure alignment with internal technical teams, and confirm business participation is planned and understood.
Ensure readiness for UAT ownership and execution, including defined business test scenarios and scope, and confirmed business SMEs and testers.
Facilitate regional readiness reviews to confirm preparedness across business teams.
Identify readiness gaps and drive actions to closure prior to phase entry.
Lead coordination of business-side execution during SIT (as needed) and UAT (primary) in collaboration with BRT UAT lead.
Ensure active participation from business testers and SMEs, process owners, and vendor participants.
Monitor execution from a business readiness and participation standpoint, including engagement levels, test progress, and alignment to expected outcomes.
Coordinate across regions to ensure consistent testing, execution, and visibility.
Collaborate with and coordinate business triage and prioritization of defects identified during testing.
Ensure defects are clearly documented with business impact and severity.
Facilitate alignment between business teams, technical delivery teams, and vendors.
Track defect progress and ensure resolution aligns with business acceptance criteria.
Support validation of fixes from a business functionality and operational perspective.
Drive structured exit from testing phases, ensuring defined exit criteria are met.
Confirm business validation of end-to-end process functionality, data integrity and expected outcomes, and operational readiness to proceed.
Identify and document open risks, deferred defects, and readiness gaps.
Provide fact-based inputs into go / no-go decision discussions.
Support planning and coordination of cutover and deployment activities from a business readiness perspective related to third party vendors.
Ensure business and vendor teams are prepared for cutover activities, deployment timelines, and transition to operations.
Track dependencies between testing outcomes and cutover readiness.
Identify and escalate risks that may impact deployment or go-live stability.
Coordinate across global regions and cross-functional teams to ensure aligned execution.
Serve as the primary bridge between business teams, consulting partner, IT and integration teams, third-party vendors, Business Readiness Workstream leads, and Program Leadership.
Drive consistency in business execution across regions.
As needed, support cross-initiative business readiness efforts aligned to separation and Day 1 independence, ensuring outcomes enable confident go-live decisions.
Maintain visibility into business readiness status, test execution progress, defects, risks, and dependencies.
Own business-side RAID tracking for testing and readiness execution.
Partner with Senior Program Manager on providing structured, fact-based reporting of project execution, status, readiness, and risks.
Support governance forums with accurate updates and escalation inputs.
Align activities with broader delivery, cutover, and readiness plans.
Identify readiness risks early and drive timely corrective action.