Project Controls Manager

About the job:

Kent is looking for a PMC Project Controls Manager. The PMC Project Controls Manager provides leadership and oversight of the integrated project controls function for a major capital project. The position is responsible for establishing and managing the project controls framework across engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and project closeout, ensuring that project performance is effectively measured, forecasted, and communicated to the Owner and project leadership team. Working within a Project Management Consultancy (PMC) organization, the Project Controls Manager serves as a key advisor to the Project Director and Owner's leadership team, providing an integrated view of cost, schedule, progress, change, risk, productivity, and forecast performance. The role is responsible for ensuring that project controls processes are consistently applied across the PMC, EPC contractors, engineering contractors, construction contractors, and other project participants. The position will establish the systems, processes, governance, and reporting necessary to identify emerging issues early and enable timely management intervention.

Skills and Responsibilities:

Responsibilities:

Project Controls Management & Governance

• Lead the overall Project Controls organization and provide functional leadership across cost, planning/scheduling, progress measurement, change management, risk, and reporting.
• Develop and implement the Project Controls Plan in alignment with the Project Execution Plan and Owner requirements.
• Establish project controls procedures, standards, coding structures, reporting requirements, and governance processes.
• Develop the project's WBS, CBS, OBS, control account structure, cost codes, and schedule coding requirements.
• Establish clear project controls requirements for EPC, engineering, construction, commissioning, and other major contractors.
• Ensure project controls processes are consistently applied across all project phases and contractors.
• Establish a strong project controls culture focused on early identification of trends, risks, and opportunities.

Cost Management & Forecasting

• Establish and maintain the Total Installed Cost (TIC) control budget and approved project baseline.
• Manage budgets, commitments, actual costs, accruals, trends, approved changes, pending changes, contingency, and Estimate at Completion (EAC).
• Lead the monthly cost forecasting process and challenge project and contractor forecasts.
• Monitor project cost performance against approved budgets and identify potential overruns and opportunities.
• Ensure cost forecasts reflect current project conditions, remaining scope, productivity, schedule, commitments, and risk exposure.
• Develop and maintain cost trending and forecast reports for project leadership.
• Coordinate closely with Procurement, Contracts, Engineering, Construction, and Finance to ensure cost information is accurate and complete.
• Review contractor cost reports, forecasts, change orders, claims, and commercial exposure.

Planning & Scheduling

• Lead the development and maintenance of the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) for the major capital project.
• Establish schedule requirements and standards for engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and contractors.
• Integrate contractor schedules into the overall project schedule.
• Maintain appropriate schedule hierarchy from Level 1 through Level 4/5, as applicable.
• Monitor critical path, near-critical activities, float, milestones, constraints, interfaces, and forecast completion dates.
• Lead schedule development, baseline reviews, monthly updates, schedule quality assessments, and recovery planning.
• Ensure schedule impacts from changes, engineering delays, procurement issues, construction productivity, and other project events are properly evaluated.
• Identify schedule trends early and develop mitigation and recovery strategies.

Progress Measurement & Earned Value

• Establish a project-wide Progress Measurement System (PMS) that objectively measures physical accomplishment.
• Develop progress measurement rules for engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and other major project activities.
• Validate contractor progress against physical quantities, deliverables, milestones, and objective evidence.
• Integrate progress measurement with the project schedule and cost systems.
• Monitor Planned Value, Earned Value, Actual Cost, CPI, SPI, productivity, and forecast performance.
• Establish appropriate earned value and productivity methodologies for major construction work packages.
• Ensure reported progress accurately reflects actual project accomplishment and does not mask emerging performance issues.

Change Management

• Own the project change management and trend control process from a Project Controls perspective.
• Establish requirements for identifying, documenting, estimating, evaluating, approving, and implementing changes.
• Maintain visibility of approved changes, pending changes, trends, potential changes, and management reserve.
• Ensure cost and schedule impacts are fully evaluated before changes are incorporated into the project baseline.
• Monitor cumulative change impacts and identify potential scope growth and cost escalation.
• Ensure approved changes are incorporated into the project budget, forecast, schedule, and reporting systems.
• Work closely with Commercial and Contracts teams to evaluate contractor change requests and claims.

Risk & Opportunity Management

• Integrate project controls with the overall project risk management process.
• Identify cost and schedule risks through analysis of project performance, contractor trends, productivity, schedule status, and forecasting.
• Support qualitative and quantitative cost and schedule risk analysis.
• Monitor project contingency and management reserve utilization.
• Ensure identified risks and opportunities are reflected appropriately in project forecasts.
• Establish reporting that clearly communicates risk-adjusted cost and schedule exposure to project leadership.

Contractor & EPC Oversight

• Establish project controls requirements and performance expectations for EPC/EPCM and major construction contractors.
• Review and approve contractor baseline schedules, cost reports, progress measurement systems, forecasts, and performance reports.
• Assess contractor schedule quality, cost performance, productivity, and forecast credibility.
• Challenge contractor forecasts and reported performance where data does not support the reported position.
• Perform periodic project controls audits and assessments of contractor systems and processes.
• Coordinate with Contracts and Commercial teams regarding contractor changes, claims, trends, and potential disputes.
• Maintain consistent project controls standards across multiple contractors and work packages.

Construction & Work Packaging Controls

• Establish project controls requirements that support Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), Work Packages, and construction execution.
• Integrate engineering deliverables, procurement status, construction work packages, and field progress into the project controls system.
• Monitor construction quantities, installed quantities, labor hours, productivity, manpower, and forecast-to-complete.
• Establish appropriate productivity metrics and benchmarks for major construction disciplines.
• Identify productivity degradation and emerging construction performance issues.
• Ensure field progress is aligned with schedule and cost forecasts.

Reporting & Executive Decision Support

• Lead development of the Weekly and Monthly Project Controls Reporting process.
• Develop integrated reporting covering:
  • Cost and EAC
  • Schedule and critical path
  • Physical progress
  • Earned value
  • Productivity
  • Change management
  • Risk and opportunity
  • Procurement
  • Engineering
  • Construction
  • Commissioning
• Provide concise executive-level reporting to the Project Director, Owner, Steering Committee, and senior leadership.
• Establish project dashboards and performance indicators using tools such as Power BI.
• Highlight significant trends, variances, risks, and opportunities rather than simply reporting historical performance.
• Provide clear recommendations and corrective actions to project leadership.

Project Controls Systems & Data Integration

• Establish and maintain integration between project controls systems including Primavera P6, EcoSys, ERP systems, estimating systems, document management systems, work packaging systems, and Power BI.
• Ensure cost, schedule, progress, and forecast data are properly aligned.
• Establish data governance and quality control processes.
• Ensure the project has a reliable single source of truth for project performance.
• Lead development and implementation of project controls dashboards and automated reporting where appropriate.

In addition to the responsibilities listed herein, the employee may be required to perform other ad-hoc tasks as needed or directed by the supervisor or management. These tasks will be within the reasonable scope of the employee's skills, capabilities, and role within the organization. The intent of this provision is to allow for flexibility and adaptability in meeting the dynamic needs of the organization, ensuring that operational requirements can be met efficiently. All such tasks will be assigned considering the employee's current workload and with respect to their professional development.

Your knowledge/skills, education, and experience:

Knowledge/ Qualification/ Training/ Certification:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Business, Finance, or related discipline.
• 15+ years of progressive project controls experience, preferably including leadership on major capital projects.
• Significant experience in PMC, Owner's organization, EPC, EPCM, or integrated project environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary project controls teams.
• Strong knowledge of cost management, planning/scheduling, progress measurement, earned value, change management, risk, productivity, and forecasting.
• Extensive experience with major EPC/EPCM contractors and contractor project controls oversight.
• Advanced knowledge of Primavera P6.
• Experience with EcoSys or comparable enterprise project cost management systems.
• Strong Excel and data analytics capabilities.
• Experience developing executive-level dashboards and reporting using Power BI is preferred.
• Experience with complex construction environments, multiple EPC contractors, modularization, AWP, and major construction work packages is highly desirable.

Communication:

• Excellent command of the English language in both oral and written communication and skills.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management.
• Executive-level presentation and reporting skills.

Behavior/ Core Competencies:

• Strategic project controls leadership.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen.
• Advanced cost and schedule management.
• Contractor performance management.
• Strong analytical and forecasting skills.
• Ability to challenge assumptions and forecasts.
• Strong understanding of EPC project execution.
• Ability to identify trends and issues before they become significant project problems.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and team-building capabilities.
• Ability to operate effectively in a complex, multi-contractor project environment.
• At Kent, you will be accountable for the performance and results of your team. You’ll be implementing policy and strategy for your own department, and beyond. We’ll trust you to identify and resolve operational and organisational problems with a high level of autonomy, to develop yourself and those in your team, and to uphold fairness and equality at Kent.

HSSEQ:

The Employee shall observe the Health, Safety, Sustainability, Environment and Quality rules of the Company; it’s clients and the governing authorities of the host country.

Details about the role:

Location: Calgary, Alberta

Relocation required: N/A

Travel required: Limited project travel will be required

Contract type: Regular full-time

Experience level: 15+ years of progressive project controls experience, preferably including leadership on major capital projects.