Senior IT Project Manager

Job Title: Senior IT Project Manager

Location: Saint Paul, MN (Hybrid / Remote)

Duration: 12 Months

Description of Engagement

The Minnesota Department of Information Technology Services (MNIT), in partnership with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), is seeking an experienced Senior IT Project Manager to provide project management leadership and oversight for complex technology modernization and digital transformation initiatives.

DCYF is undertaking significant modernization efforts to improve the delivery of child welfare, family assistance, and other human services programs. Current initiatives include modernization of the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS), legacy system integration, improved data governance, and coordination of technology services across state agencies, counties, and Tribal Nations.

The selected resource will be responsible for planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and delivering enterprise-level IT projects while ensuring alignment with DCYF business objectives, MNIT technology standards, and State of Minnesota project management practices.

The Project Manager will collaborate with agency leadership, business stakeholders, technical teams, external vendors, and cross-agency partners to ensure successful project delivery within approved scope, schedule, budget, and quality expectations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and manage complex enterprise IT modernization projects from initiation through implementation, deployment, and project closure.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive project management plans, including scope, schedules, budgets, resource allocation, milestones, and deliverables.
• Coordinate technology modernization initiatives involving legacy applications, cloud-based platforms, database modernization, data integration, and enterprise systems.
• Manage project risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies through RAID logs, mitigation plans, and escalation procedures.
• Work closely with MNIT, DCYF program leadership, business analysts, developers, architects, QA teams, and external vendors.
• Facilitate stakeholder meetings, project governance sessions, steering committee updates, and executive-level status reporting.
• Monitor project performance against established KPIs and provide regular project dashboards and progress reports.
• Oversee vendor deliverables, contractual commitments, project dependencies, and service-level expectations.
• Manage project budgets, financial forecasts, resource planning, and expenditure tracking.
• Coordinate requirements gathering, solution design, development, testing, UAT, implementation, and production readiness activities.
• Support organizational change management, business process improvements, stakeholder communications, and end-user training.
• Ensure compliance with applicable state and federal security, privacy, accessibility, and data governance requirements.
• Coordinate data migration, system integration, and application modernization activities across multiple technical teams.
• Apply Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, or Hybrid project management methodologies based on project requirements.
• Prepare executive presentations, project documentation, lessons learned, and transition-to-operations plans.

Mandatory Qualifications

Required Skills

• IT Project Management 8+ Years
• Enterprise Application / System Modernization 5+ Years
• SDLC - Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid 5+ Years
• Project Planning, Scheduling, Budget Management 5+ Years
• Risk, Issue, Dependency and Change Management 5+ Years
• Vendor and Stakeholder Management 5+ Years
• Cross-functional Technical Team Coordination 5+ Years
• Executive Reporting and Project Governance 3+ Years
• Jira, MS Project, Azure DevOps, or Similar Tools 3+ Years
• Government / Public-Sector IT Projects Preferred

Preferred Qualifications

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), PMI-ACP, or SAFe certification.
• Experience working with Minnesota state agencies, MNIT, DCYF, DHS, or other state government organizations.
• Experience with CCWIS, child welfare information systems, human services modernization, or health and human services programs.
• Experience managing Azure cloud modernization, database migration, enterprise data platforms, and system integration.
• Understanding of federal funding requirements, procurement procedures, vendor oversight, and government project governance.
• Familiarity with organizational change management, business process reengineering, and enterprise transformation.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Project, Azure DevOps, Jira, Confluence, SharePoint, Power BI, and Microsoft Office tools.
• Strong experience coordinating distributed teams and communicating with executive leadership and external stakeholders.