Operational Acceptance Analyst > Mons > Joboolo BE :

10pt;>Who we are supporting 

10pt;>The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners.

The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

10pt;>The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• 
  10pt;>
  10pt;>Cyber Security:
  
  The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• 
  10pt;>
  10pt;>Command and Control Systems:
  
  The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• 
  10pt;>
  10pt;>Satellite Communications:
  
  The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• 
  10pt;>
  10pt;>Electronic Warfare:
  
  The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• 
  10pt;>
  10pt;>Information Management:
  
  The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

10pt;>Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

10pt;>The program

10pt;>Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

10pt;>The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider.

It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

10pt;>To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce.

The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's:

NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s.

The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

• The goal of project monitoring, operational risk management and acceptance assessment is to ensure that the projects / services are delivered timely, meet the user and customer’s operational requirements, operational acceptance criteria, and that the transition to service is performed in a planned and managed manner.


• CIS services are End-to-End (E2E) services consisting of systems delivered by NCIA projects and contractors, bundled with various NCIA service management and service operations processes that interact with operational processes.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

Software projects and services analysis, monitoring and reporting includes the support project management milestones tracking, operational requirements traceability, scope, time, cost change analysis and impact.

This will be done for prioritized projects, ACO CIS critical projects and comprises following tasks:

• Collect inputs from a variety of sources and prepare and coordinate deliverables.


• Conduct analysis and communicate findings to project team and decision makers.


• Interface with the NCIA PM and ACO SRO, Cy Service Operational Requirements


• Work within a multi-stakeholder, technical, and matrixed organizational environment.


• Identify each critical dependency.


• Identify the commitments to address each critical dependency and document the commitments made by those responsible for providing the work product (NCIA PM) and those receiving the work product (ACO SRO).


• Prepare and maintain a Dependency Structure Matrix identifying project interdependency, interdependencies with other programmes, and critical commitments.


• Track critical dependencies and commitments and recommend corrective actions, as appropriate.


• Contribute to the establishment of a continuing capability to monitor and control the critical projects.


• Monitor and create situational awareness for the projects Contribute for quarterly progress reviews of each portfolio of projects and develop reports and dashboards

Operational Risk management is a proactive event-based approach to continuously assess what might go wrong within the project and set activities into action to control, minimize or even eliminate the risk.

Risks are typically defined with parameters such as the probability and likelihood of failing to achieve a particular operational outcome, the consequences and impacts of failing to achieve that outcome, and thresholds to determine if the status of a risk requires action.

Main tasks for operational risk management are:

• Pro-actively identify risks, assess impacts, and recommend responses to decrease the probability of negative events and increase the probability of positive outcomes.


• Identify, characterize, and develop responses to systemic risks within Implementation processes of ACO critical projects.


• Contribute to the development of a project risk management processes assessing stakeholder risk perception and acceptance, and identifying the standards for risk identification, risk assessment, risk reporting, and risk review.


• Establish and maintain the Risk Register product, for ACO critical projects Provide impact assessment of projects issues, risks, and changes.


• Perform periodic project risk assessments.


• Perform periodic project risk reviews.

User Acceptance and Operational Acceptance requires project monitoring and operational risk management support.

The UA and OA assessment include the following tasks that will be conducted by the Project and acceptance analyst:

• Support project acceptance for the SHAPE CIS projects as assigned.


• Develop Operational acceptance criteria (OAC) based on a thorough analysis of Operational Requirements (functionality, performance and other characteristics) from a stakeholders or usage perspective.


• Establish current baseline for current delivered services (in case of replacement)


• Plan and conduct or witness Service based testing – utility – to confirm if service delivers the required functionality (for each type of service and each type of user)


• Conduct Operational Test and Evaluation (OTE) in conjunction with ACO as required and agreed with them.
  
  This will assure the proper functioning of the E2E service.


• Identify project milestones that can affect the OA activities


• Identify and manage the risk associated to OACs in order to inform their prioritization


• Assure that any remaining defects to the technical systems are fixed or have acceptable work-arounds or capture as deficiencies.


• Identify and asses the residual risk associated with the deficiencies resulting after UA, OA or OLT


• Assure that user is ready to use the new service with no or minimal risk (not affecting the mission).


• Performs other tasks duties as may be required

Essential Skills and Experience

Recent experience in the:

• CIS project and services analysis, monitoring and reporting


• Planning and execution of acceptance testing activities;


• Experience with ITIL v3;


• Experience in CIS projects within the domain of Core communications and IT infrastructure;


• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization including ACO and ACT.


• Knowledge of software/system/service life cycle management and quality management


• preferably in a Prince 2 & ITIL environment;


• Working-level knowledge of MS-Office, Project, Visio and SharePoint;


• Working knowledge in JIRA


• Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing with good briefing skills.

Education

• A Master of Science (MSc) degree at a nationally recognised/certified University in a related discipline (Computer Science or Engineering), with 5 years post-related experience;

Desirable Skills and Experience

• PMP certificate, PRINCE 2 foundation/practitioner certificate, International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) certification at the foundation level;


• Experience in NATO CIS projects within the domain of Software applications for the


• Operational Digital Workplace;


• Prior experience of working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements;


• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization including ACO and ACT

Working Location

• Mons, Belgium

Working Policy

• On-Site

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Contract Duration

• May 2024 – Dec 2028

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance