Project Manager - SIS Replacement

ELMO•Spring Hill, FL

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Brisbane Grammar School is seeking a Project Manager to lead the client-side delivery of its student information system (SIS) replacement and related technology projects. This contract role, running until December 2027 and commencing ASAP, requires a strong blend of disciplined project delivery, stakeholder and change leadership, and technically informed assurance of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Microsoft ecosystem. The successful candidate will manage the project plan, implementation plan, critical path, governance, budget, risks, and status reporting. This role involves keeping stakeholders informed, ensuring affected teams have meaningful input, and verifying that solutions function within their operational context. The incumbent must possess sufficient technical depth to evaluate vendor claims, differentiate genuine platform constraints from implementation preferences, identify viable options, and hold delivery partners accountable for secure, sustainable, and value-for-money outcomes.

Requirements

Extensive experience leading complex enterprise technology and organisational change projects, including end-to-end delivery of a Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation.
Demonstrated ownership of integrated project and implementation plans, critical path, budgets, governance, RAID, change control, cutover, and concise executive status reporting.
Strong technical working knowledge of Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Dataverse, enterprise integration, identity and access, data migration, testing, environments, release, and service transition.
Ability to critically evaluate vendor recommendations, identify when claimed limitations are not genuine technical constraints, develop credible alternative options, and hold partners accountable for quality, value, and delivery.
Exceptional stakeholder-management capability across executive, educator, operational, technical, and vendor groups, including gaining meaningful input and translating it into workable delivery plans.
Demonstrated change-management experience across stakeholder analysis, impact and readiness, communications, training, adoption measurement, reinforcement, and benefits realisation.
Proven ability to de-escalate resistance and conflict through active listening, empathy, facilitation, negotiation, and evidence-based decision-making while maintaining accountability and momentum.
Demonstrated success redesigning processes with users, challenging entrenched practices constructively, and embedding sustainable new ways of working with clear ownership and measurable outcomes.
Strong commercial and vendor-management capability, plus the ability to work autonomously, navigate ambiguity, and translate between business and technical stakeholders.
Relevant tertiary qualification or equivalent experience, with a recognised project delivery certification such as PRINCE2, PMP, or Agile.

Nice To Haves

Experience delivering a student information system or major enterprise platform in a school, education, or similarly complex service environment.
A recognised change-management qualification or substantial equivalent experience, such as Prosci, APMG Change Management, or Lean Change.
Experience with Power Platform governance, environment strategy, managed solutions, pipelines, licensing optimisation, and Azure integration services.

Responsibilities

Develop, baseline, and actively manage the integrated project plan, implementation roadmap, and critical path, covering scope, activities, milestones, dependencies, resources, costs, acceptance criteria, transition, and benefits.
Maintain forward visibility and intervene early when commitments are at risk.
Confirm that School and vendor resources, capacity, and prerequisite activities are sufficient to meet planned commitments.
Lead governance forums and maintain accurate, decision-focused reporting on progress against plan, budget, scope, risks, issues, dependencies, quality, change readiness, and required decisions.
Ensure actions, decisions, approvals, and escalations are documented, assigned, and completed.
Map stakeholder influence, impact, and readiness across leaders, educators, administrative teams, technology teams, and partners.
Involve affected teams in shaping the project, implementation, cutover, and transition plans so timing, sequencing, training, and support reflect what will work for their teams while preserving agreed outcomes.
Lead change impact and readiness assessments, communications, training, engagement, and adoption measures.
Maintain transparent feedback loops, keep stakeholders informed and involved, and build shared ownership of the change.
Anticipate points of tension and respond calmly through active listening, empathy, evidence, and facilitation.
Distinguish legitimate operational risk from change anxiety, broker pragmatic resolutions, and address resistance without avoiding difficult decisions or losing delivery momentum.
Facilitate current- and future-state workshops with teaching and administrative teams.
Constructively challenge legacy practices, simplify and standardize processes, and establish accountable process owners, decision rights, controls, hand-offs, and measurable adoption outcomes.
Provide informed oversight across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft ecosystem.
Validate vendor advice, challenge unsupported “cannot be done” assertions, request evidence and alternatives, assess trade-offs, and escalate concerns where the School’s interests are not being served.
Coordinate School, vendor, and partner workstreams through design, build, migration, integration, testing, cutover, hypercare, and transition to support.
Ensure quality gates, business continuity, runbooks, knowledge transfer, support ownership, and operational readiness are achieved.
Manage contracts, statements of work, change requests, supplier performance, financial forecasts, RAID, and decision registers.
Track adoption, process, service, and benefit measures and ensure corrective actions are owned and monitored.
Ensure security, privacy, access, data integrity, and regulatory requirements are defined, tested, approved, and documented before production use.
Coordinate the integrated testing and defect-management approach, ensuring acceptance criteria, quality gates, and exit decisions are clear, evidenced, and approved.
Maintain accurate budget, forecast, commitment, invoice, contingency, and variance controls.