Programme Director – Property System Leadership

Tēnei tūranga – About the role

The Programme Director is responsible for initiating and delivering a complex programme of work to establish Property System Leadership within MBIE, commencing with design and initial implementation over the next 18 months, culminating over time in a centralised delivery model for government office accommodation services. Establishing Property System Leadership is a significant government transformation programme. The Programme Director is critical to ensuring its success.

The Programme Director is an important leadership role and is expected to shape and influence the form of System Leadership, drive and deliver work programme ensuring it remains on track, build strong relationships across government, support the Chief Executive as the designated Property System Lead, and be adept at working with senior leaders across government and with ministers.

Background

The establishment of System Leadership under the Public Service Act 2020 created an opportunity to manage more effectively and efficiently the government’s office accommodation. The Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was appointed as the System Leader for Property by the Public Service Commissioner to drive a whole-of-system approach to the government’s office accommodation portfolio. 

With a strong mandate, the System Leader for Property ensures the effective and efficient management of the government’s office accommodation portfolio in support of our public sector reforms and government expectations for property.

In addition to establishing System Leadership, Cabinet agreed in principle in April 2022 to strengthen the leadership of government office accommodation through centralisation of some or all government office accommodation property functions to achieve efficiency, alignment, and impact across systems.

The government’s office accommodation portfolio is significant, encompassing 997,614m2 of office space and a rental spend of circa $330 million per year across 73 agencies, including Crown Agents.

The Programme Director will bring their significant experience in government transformation and programme leadership, highly tuned senior-stakeholder engagement skills and political nous to provide and deliver:

• Management and day-to-day ownership and delivery of the programme of work that forms the Property System Leadership, including line responsibility for the Programme team.
• Leadership of all programme processes, including communicating key programme messages, sector and cross-agency engagement at a senior level, procurement, iwi and community engagement, and negotiations.
• Supported by the Policy Director, leadership of advice to Ministers.
• Day-to-day responsibility for the management of the Property System Leadership programme, including planning activities, external communications, and mitigation of risks and issues.
• Programme/project management planning advice and support for the Property System Leadership Team – for example, on the preparation of high-quality project and business case documentation, planning documents, stakeholder engagement and communications plans.
• Fit-for-purpose processes, reporting and governance to ensure the project, delivered by multiple parties, has effective oversight and accountability.
• Close and effective working relationships with relevant teams across MBIE.
• Accountability for team performance to through regular, high-level reporting to senior leaders at MBIE.
• Impactful and engaging representation of the programme to senior Ministers, officials, government agencies and the sector, including seeking consensus where necessary.
• Support to the General Manager, Government Property Group in meetings with the Minister and Senior public service leaders.
• Partnering with the GM in driving the strategic agenda at portfolio and cross portfolio levels (forward focus).
• Working with the Policy Director to drive the strategic direction of the work of the team.
• Leading the delivery of short-term, business critical work when the need arises.
• Connecting cross domain, team, branch and group and identifying where attention is required and ensuring needs are met (either through the GM or Policy Director) (change agent).
• Trusted advisor and sounding board for the GM and Managers.
• Providing thought leadership on complex, ambiguous issues with significant sensitivity and risk, setting and driving priorities.

Ngā herenga – Requirements of the role

Personal specifications

• Strong programme management skills and knowledge of programme management disciplines and proven delivery of significant government or similar transformation programmes.
• Senior-level experience successfully managing a large programme of activity, including working effectively across agencies/organisations.
• Comprehensive understanding of the Public Sector environment and a demonstrated understanding of policy and regulatory processes, including Government decision-making and operating procedures, and the experience to bring both policy and operational perspectives to bear on the programme.
• Understanding there will be various agency perspective of how government office accommodation should be managed, recognising the need to bring agencies on the transition journey.
• Understanding what the government wants to achieve and the ability to anticipate minister and Ministry needs.
• Intuition for the most significant challenges facing Property System Leadership and an ability to simplify complex problems and concepts and translate high-level policy objectives and vision statements into actionable advice and outcomes.
• Strong relationship-building skills, with the ability to quickly earn the trust and confidence of senior government officials, ministers and industry stakeholders.

Able to:

• navigate high levels of ambiguity and use judgement and experience to identify priorities.
• use experience and judgement to shape the future policy agenda and priorities, identify work programme gaps, delivery risks and other issues and ensure effective and timely intervention.
• influence at very senior levels, both within government and within industry, enabled by a strong understanding of the priorities for each and the dynamics at play.
• harness diverse perspectives and bring people together to work towards a shared purpose.
• get things done, maintain momentum for the programme and have a clear focus on achieving results – a pragmatic, decisive leader.
• apply strong intellectual capability and judgement to analyse large, complex policy issues and readily grasp and synthesise the ideas, analysis and advice produced by others.
• communicate and persuade using a range of oral, written and visual mediums in diverse situations.
• use effective commissioning and management techniques including to identify and manage risks.
• identify strategically important stakeholders and establish connections within short periods of time, and maintain and deepen those relationships over time even in the face of differences.
• Proven people-management skills.
• Flexibility to adapt within a fast-moving environment.
• Ability to assimilate new information or areas of work.

Other

• A tertiary qualification in project or programme management (or equivalent) would be beneficial.
• Must be a NZ citizen or hold a residence class visa.

Takohanga tuhinga o mua – Key accountabilities and deliverables

Critical Areas of Success

• Provides overall oversight and leadership of the Property System Leadership.
• Delivers quality results which contribute to the Programme outcomes.
• Builds and maintains effective, executive-level and strategic working relationships across government and industry for programme success.
• Leads advice on complex, ambiguous multi-agency issues with significant sensitivity and risk, and provides authoritative and frank policy advice that recognises the choices and constraints Ministers face, anticipates needs, predicts and plans for potentially controversial or politically sensitive issues.
• Partners with the General Manager and Policy Director to align the programme with the strategic policy agenda at a portfolio level.
• Critically synthesises information from a wide variety of domains and applies expert judgement to draw conclusions.
• Cement programme planning and process to ensure that all workstreams are delivered to deadline and a high standard.
• Act as a point of escalation for significant risks, issues, funding or resourcing challenges that could impact the delivery of the programme.
• Build and maintain working relationships between the programme and other government teams, agencies and initiatives to ensure the programme is cognisant of related priorities and activities.
• Oversee a framework for managing stakeholder engagement and change.
• Report on progress of the programme and issues to the Governance Group, Senior Leaders, as required, relevant Ministers.
• Provide guidance, mentoring and support to the team to ensure that the programme is delivered effectively, including in the production of any collateral or communications.
• Maintain a forward agenda, identifying opportunities and risks for the programme and, where risks exist, recommending mitigations to the Governance Group.
• Oversee programme budgets, timelines and dependencies.

Leadership

• Provide day-to-day leadership, management and HR responsibility for the programme team members.
• Foster an open, collaborative environment that encourages quality, innovation, on-going learning and knowledge sharing within the team and across MBIE.
• Provide intellectual support and coach others on relationship management, monitoring, government systems and knowledge of institutional practice.
• Create a positive and delivery-focussed culture within the team, which is open to taking risks and learning lessons from failure, and where diverse views and perspectives are sought out and considered.
• Provide constructive, timely and specific feedback to others and give credit for tasks well done.
• Model MBIE’s values and culture.
• Holds direct reports accountable for work undertaken.

Relationship Management

• Builds and maintains effective relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders, including senior leaders and ministers across the public service in order to ensure effective programme delivery.
• Builds strategic alliances with key government and non-government representatives to ensure MBIE’s views are influential in their decision-making.
• Develops effective working relationships with other MBIE managers and staff in order to deliver the programme of work and transfer knowledge and learning from the team to the wider organisation.
• Represents whole-of-Ministry views and protects its reputation in any external interactions.

Wellbeing, health & safety

• Displays commitment through actively supporting all safety and wellbeing initiatives.
• Ensures own and others safety at all times.
• Complies with relevant safety and wellbeing policies, procedures, safe systems of work and event reporting.
• Reports all incidents/accidents, including near misses in a timely fashion.
• Is involved in health and safety through participation and consultation.

Tō tūranga i roto i te Manatū – Your place in the Ministry

The Programme Director, Property System Leadership reports into the General Manager within the Government Property Group branch. The branch sits within the Business, Resources and Markets group.

More information about MBIE’s structure

To mātou aronga – What we do for Aotearoa New Zealand

Hīkina Whakatutuki is the te reo Māori name for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Hīkina means to uplift. Whakatutuki means to move forward, to make successful. Our name speaks to our purpose, Grow Aotearoa New Zealand for All.

To Grow Aotearoa New Zealand for All, we put people at the heart of our mahi. Based on the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi, we are committed to upholding authentic partnerships with Māori.

As agile public service leaders, we use our breadth and experience to navigate the ever-changing world. We are service providers, policy makers, investors and regulators. We engage with diverse communities, businesses and regions. Our work touches on the daily lives of New Zealanders. We grow opportunities (Puāwai), guard and protect (Kaihāpai) and innovate and navigate towards a better future (Auaha).

Ngā matatau – Our competencies

Cultivates innovation We create new and better ways for the organisation to be successful by challenging the status quo generating new and creative ideas and translating them into workable solutions.

Nimble learning We are curious and actively learn through experimentation when tackling new problems by learning as we go when facing new situations and challenges.

Customer focus We build strong customer relationships and deliver customer-centric solutions by listening and gaining insights into the needs of the communities we serve and actively seeking and responding to feedback.

Decision quality We make quality and timely decisions that shape the future for our communities and keep the organisation moving forward by relying on an appropriate mix of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgement to make valid and reliable decisions.

Action oriented We step up, taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with purpose, urgency and discipline by taking responsibility, ownership and action on challenges, and being accountable for the results.

Collaborates We connect, working together to build partnerships with our communities, working collaboratively to meet shared objectives by gaining trust and support of others; actively seeking the views, experiences, and opinions of others and by working co-operatively with others across MBIE, the public sector and external stakeholder groups.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

As an agency of the public service, MBIE has a responsibility to contribute to the Crown meeting its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti). Meeting our commitment to Te Tiriti will contribute towards us realising the overall aims of Te Ara Amiorangi – Our Path, Our Direction, and achieve the outcome of Growing New Zealand for All. The principles of Te Tiriti - including partnership, good faith, and active protection – are at the core of our work. MBIE is committed to delivering on our obligations as a Treaty partner with authenticity and integrity and to enable Māori interests. We are committed to ensuring that MBIE is well placed to meet our obligations under the Public Service Act 2020 (Te Ao Tūmatanui) to support the Crown in strengthening the Māori/Crown Relationship under the Treaty and to build MBIE’s capability, capacity and cultural intelligence to deliver this.

Mahi i roto i te Ratonga Tūmatanui – Working in the public service

Ka mahitahi mātou o te ratonga tūmatanui kia hei painga mō ngā tāngata o Aotearoa i āianei, ā, hei ngā rā ki tua hoki. He kawenga tino whaitake tā mātou hei tautoko i te Karauna i runga i āna hononga ki a ngāi Māori i raro i te Tiriti o Waitangi. Ka tautoko mātou i te kāwanatanga manapori. Ka whakakotahingia mātou e te wairua whakarato ki ō mātou hapori, ā, e arahina ana mātou e ngā mātāpono me ngā tikanga matua o te ratonga tūmatanui i roto i ā mātou mahi.

In the public service we work collectively to make a meaningful difference for New Zealanders now and in the future. We have an important role in supporting the Crown in its relationships with Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi. We support democratic government. We are unified by a spirit of service to our communities and guided by the core principles and values of the public service in our work.

What does it mean to work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public Service?(external link) — Te Kawa Mataaho The Public Service Commission