Strategic Project Manager

the project•Denver, CO

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Lead the multi-year replacement of Colorado’s legacy probation case management system, ICON/JPOD. The role spans the full project lifecycle, from requirements and procurement through design, development, data migration, testing, statewide rollout, and system decommissioning. It connects technology infrastructure, legislative and policy compliance, and the day-to-day needs of probation officers, judicial staff, partner agencies, and justice-involved individuals across 23 judicial districts. The project operates within a multi-level governance framework. The project manager supports executive decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and issue escalation across business, technology, and judicial leadership. The new system must maintain uninterrupted data exchanges through the Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (CICJIS), including exchanges with the Department of Corrections, Division of Youth Services, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and Colorado District Attorneys' Council. The intended outcomes include reducing probation officers’ time spent on data entry, providing supervisors with reliable decision-making data, and supporting clearer, fairer, and more consistent supervision experiences. This is a hybrid position based in Denver, with required local candidacy and in-office attendance once a week, ideally Tuesdays. Regular in-state travel to judicial districts, including rural districts, may be required, particularly during training and rollout. Occasional work outside normal hours is expected around go-live and cutover events.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in project management, information systems, public administration, criminal justice, business, or a related field; additional relevant experience may substitute for the degree year for year.
Ten years of progressively responsible project management experience, including at least five years leading large, complex technology implementations with multiple vendors and stakeholder groups.
Demonstrated experience managing a multi-year schedule.
Experience leading enterprise system replacements that included data migration and organizational change management.
Ability to pass a criminal background check.
Ability to work in a hybrid position based in Denver and attend the office once a week.
Must be local to Denver; regular in-state travel to judicial districts may be required.
Occasional work outside normal hours around go-live and cutover events.
Command of predictive, Agile, and hybrid project management methods, and the judgment to choose between them.
Ability to understand interactions between technology, policy, operations, and people and anticipate downstream effects of design choices.
Clear, plain-language writing and speaking for audiences ranging from judges and legislators to frontline officers and vendors.
Ability to build consensus among stakeholders with competing priorities without direct authority.
Empathy for users and ability to design around probation officers’ and clients’ needs.
Ability to interpret data, evaluate trade-offs, and make sound decisions under uncertainty.
Integrity and discretion in handling confidential criminal justice information and sensitive organizational matters.
Resilience and steady leadership through ambiguity, setbacks, and the pressures of a high-visibility public project.
Understanding of business outcomes and ability to support measurement of adoption and value realization objectives.
Ability to operate within complex governance structures, prepare executive decision materials, facilitate escalations, and support leadership decision-making across organizational levels.
Ability to support organizational readiness, stakeholder engagement, communications, training, and user adoption activities.

Nice To Haves

Project Management Professional (PMP), PgMP, or equivalent certification.
Agile and change management certifications.
Experience with Waterfall project methodology.
Experience applying Waterfall governance and procurement controls in conjunction with Agile solution delivery.
Experience implementing case management systems for courts, probation, parole, corrections, or other justice agencies.
Familiarity with Colorado state government, the Colorado Judicial Branch, or CICJIS data exchanges.
Experience with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or configurable SaaS platform implementations in the public sector.
Experience working with geographically distributed users in urban and rural settings.

Responsibilities

Lead the full project lifecycle, from requirements and procurement through design, build, data migration, testing, statewide rollout, and decommissioning of ICON/JPOD.
Develop and maintain the master schedule, budget, scope baseline, and benefits realization plan.
Translate the Branch’s strategic goals for probation into clear project objectives and measurable success criteria.
Support solicitation, evaluation, and selection of a solution vendor under state procurement rules.
Hold vendors and internal teams accountable for quality, schedule, and cost.
Track Colorado statutes, Chief Justice Directives, and probation standards affecting system requirements, and incorporate them into the solution.
Coordinate with legal, policy, and research staff to support required reporting, risk and needs assessments, and evidence-based practices.
Engage chief probation officers, officers, supervisors, judges, court staff, and partner agencies across all 23 judicial districts.
Lead human-centered design activities, including field observation, user testing, and feedback loops with frontline staff.
Direct organizational change management, training, communications, and go-live support.
Ensure client-facing parts of the system are accessible, use plain language, and are equitable for justice-involved individuals.
Identify, track, and mitigate risks and issues, and escalate decisions promptly.
Plan cutover to ensure probation supervision is never interrupted.
Report project status, risks, and outcomes to leadership.