Schedule and Risk Management Support

We are looking for a ​Schedule and Risk Management Support​ to complete our consultants Workforce Management Service to support the ​Head of BUC & PMSO Commercial & Industry Partnership Office (CFO-HI)​ of the European Space Agency (ESA) at their location in ​Noordwijk, The Netherlands, or Harwell, UK​.  

The purpose of this Support Service is to ​fulfil a transversal role within the Directorate of Commercialisation and Industry Partnership (CIP) by providing management support and being responsible for its overall resource planning, controlling, and reporting, with the aim of ensuring a coherent, balanced and effective implementation of activities. The Office also provides dedicated support to the project managers for the management support activities concerned with project control, configuration and data management (CADM), financial and cost control, schedule and risk management control, and digital reporting.​ 

Please note, the successful candidate will be employed by ATG Europe (or one of its subsidiaries). Furthermore, upon selection, they will be subject to a general security screening performed by an external provider (further information will be provided at the interview stage). 

ATG is dedicated to diversity and inclusion and is an equal opportunity employer. Regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, handicap, or any other reason protected by relevant state or municipal legislation, we are pleased to consider all eligible candidates for employment. 

The successful candidate will be tasked with, but not limited to: 

• Coordinate project schedule and risk support, ensuring that common approaches are followed, common tools are used where possible, improvements are suggested, and the service operates as independently as possible; 

• Provide support to project teams in schedule control and the periodic monitoring of industrial consortia against the approved baseline schedule; 

• Perform analysis of schedules received from industrial consortia using an agreed set of schedule KPIs, and prepare performance deviation reports; 

• Perform complex schedule analysis including metrics on quality, critical path analysis, float summary and assess the schedule performance at the required level; 

• Provide expert schedule and risk support, inputs, evaluations, and recommendations to project teams during major procurement activities, (e.g., CCBs), programmatic reviews (e.g. IPREV) and technical reviews (e.g. PDR, CDR); 

• Provide expert input to project teams for the definition and update of project Schedule and Risk Management Plans; 

• Set-up and configure schedule and risk tools and in close cooperation with project control and each project core team; 

• Support and assist project teams in their schedule and risk management processes; 

• Support the book captain for schedule management at project level ensuring configuration control is maintained on baseline and working schedules SW files and documentation; 

• Coordinate and support schedule/risk meetings with the ESA project teams (e.g. review schedule from industry and suggest a list of topics to be discussed by ESA in the status meetings with industry); 

• Determine the criticality of schedule activities on CIP projects, evaluate, and suggest alternatives for schedule improvement, recovery, and acceleration to the technical teams for discussion and/or decision; 

• Run simulations and what-if scenarios in support of management and technical teams’ decision process;  

• Set up and maintain trend charts, templates for reporting progress, in line with agency best practices; 

• Set up and maintain schedule performance indicators and quality metrics for project schedules; 

• Prepare periodic quarterly and ad-hoc reports documenting schedule performance status and analysis and communicate on the content to the project team; 

• Support to project team in understanding the status of the planning in their work domain and issue recommendations for improvement; 

• Proactively track and verify the consistency between the schedules of the Industrial Consortia, interfacing proactively with industrial teams as necessary to get the up-to-date information. Identify potential problem areas and propose relevant mitigation actions; 

• Provide expert support to the ESA Project Manager, project controller and project team in the risk management process, including suggestions for schedule recovery or acceleration, definition of mitigation plans and follow-up of actions; 

• Perform project or mission close-out schedule related activities, if required; 

• Assist CIP Project Control in the design and implementation of new schedule and risk control techniques, state of the art tools and procedures and potential AI applications; 

• Provide expert advice to PMSO Office on the use or introduction of new schedule and risk management IT tools, reporting and dashboards and coordinate associated development and testing activities; 

• Support CIP Business Control and Programme Management Support Section for the QMS audit exercise on Schedule and Risk Management; 

• Proactively contribute to the development, maintenance and update of schedule and risk standards, practices, and processes within Agency’s programs; 

• Proactively contribute to the Agency’s activities in capturing knowledge and elaborating best practices documentation in schedule and risk control; 

• If required, support the CIP project teams in working groups on the topic of schedule engineering or risk management; 

• Elaborate training materials and deliver the trainings to the ESA teams; 

• Support queries and issues on the tools used for schedule and risk management. 

Please ensure that your CV clearly explains how you meet the mandatory requirements. If it doesn’t align completely with the essential criteria, it could result in rejection. 

• Master’s Degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Information Management, or a related Technical field;   

• At least 4 years of experience in configuration management, data/document control, or CADM; 

• Planning and scheduling experience to support the analysis of schedule files and critical paths, the definition and maintenance of project schedules, the definition and maintenance of milestone trend charts and support to the preparation of risk adjusted schedules; 

• Experience ensuring consistent transversal implementation across disciplines (risk, schedule, documentation, configuration and project control) per project and harmonization across departments; 

• Experience ensuring consistent transversal implementation across disciplines (risk, schedule, documentation, configuration and project control) per project and harmonization across departments;

• Expert level knowledge of one or more of the following software tools: 

  • Microsoft Project Professional (incl. Microsoft Project Online);

  • Oracle Primavera; 

  • Deltek Acumen; 

  • Visio Professional; 

  • Office Timeline; 

  • Microsoft 365 Office Software; 

  • Sharepoint; 

  • Symbio/Zenith (QMS tool set); 

  • Data Management Systems; 

  • SAP.

• Expert level software tools using Monte Carlo techniques for schedule risk adjustment; 

• Proficiency in the use of financial, schedule, risk, and configuration management electronic tools, best practices, and methods as relevant to their service work-package;  

• Ability to operate in a lean and efficient manner, working autonomously on routine tasks, liaising, and collaborating with other Teams/Groups in ESA, proactively interfacing with industrial teams as necessary, maintaining good working relationships, and facilitating information exchange; 

• Ability to contribute to common processes for CIP project management support, and suggested ways and best practices to improve processes, tools, practices on an ongoing basis based on feedback, data analysis, and benchmarking, and to the delivery of high-quality and timely services to the CIP community; 

• Ability to actively contribute to the definition and update of reliable project schedules; integrating resources, cost and risk when required, tracking main milestones, critical path analysis, trend charts and preparation of risk adjusted schedules; 

• Ability to provide expert technical support to ESA Project Managers, project controllers and project teams, in all schedule planning, monitoring, reporting and control aspects with the goal of providing an overview to the Agency’s long-term planning, procurement activity status, configuration control of schedules, tracking progress and schedule performance in the working schedules of industrial contracts, and controlling projects schedule portfolio submitted for projects by various  stakeholders; 

• Ability to actively contribute to the Risk Management Process for projects, supporting ESA Project Managers, project controllers and project teams in making what-if scenarios, including risk adjusted scenarios, supporting and administrating risk tools used by the projects ensuring harmonisation across CIP and evolutions to reporting and dashboards; 

• Candidates must be eligible to live and work in the EU (or UK); 

• Fluency in English, both written and spoken. 

Please submit your application in English via the apply button below. Applications submitted in other languages will not be considered.