Senior Planning Lead — ERP Global Transformation Project

Brussels hybrid or remote, 6-month extendable

Experience in running the planning of ERP global deployments is required for this role

Context

SPARK is the ERP General Transformation project of Our Client. It was launched in April 2025 and will run until 2028. 2025 was mainly about solution design. We are now completing the configuration and development of the global core template solution based mainly on S/4 HANA PCE integrated with multiple satellite systems. Starting in August, the upcoming phases are about testing (ITC, UAT), user training and cutover to ensure the deployment on the first 3 countries with a go-live planned for Feb. 2027.

We are now looking for a SPARK Planning Lead that will be part of the core PMO team - reporting to the head of SPARK PMO.

Role:

The SPARK Planning Lead is responsible, on Our Client’s side and in defense of Our Client’s interests, for the management and control of the overall SPARK project timeline while overall delivery accountability sits with the system integrator (SI). The program uses a hybrid delivery model, combining Agile activities (sprints, backlogs, increments) for configuration and development in some domains and Waterfall-driven phases (integration testing, data migration, cutover, go-live) for others and for the overall project. The Planning Lead ensures the integrated plan stays coherent and realistic across both modes. The Planning Lead ensures a reliable view of the integrated master plan and critical path, and challenges, cross-checks and holds the SI PMO to account on planning, re-baselining, critical path, milestones and dependencies, synchronization between the master plan and the workstream plans, status by stream, and reporting — so that Our Client keeps a realistic and independent view of the plan at all times. The Planning Lead reports to the SPARK Head of PMO and operates within the governance and standards defined for the program.

Key responsibilities

1.



Overall timeline & integrated planning • Maintain a reliable view of the integrated master plan until the go-live of the first-out countries (Feb. 2027). • Ensure project activities, constraints and realistic capacity are correctly reflected in the plan by the SI: availability of business and IT resources, internal review and approval cycles, documentation effort, change and training timelines, blackout periods and critical business windows, etc. • Ensure synchronization between the project master plan and the workstream plans and backlogs. • Ensure the integration and reconciliation of multiple sources into one coherent view — SI MS Project schedules and workstream MS-Project / Excel milestone plans.

2. Critical path, milestones & dependencies • Maintain and actively monitor the critical path; identify the milestones and dependencies SPARK must protect. • Ensure milestones and cross-stream dependencies are correctly defined, sequenced and kept synchronized across streams and plans. • Flag conflicts between streams, unrealistic overlaps (e.g. sprints vs. test/cutover windows) and over-commitment of key Our Client resources.

3. Re-baselining & plan integrity • Scrutinize and challenge any SI re-baselining: understand the drivers, assess the impact on critical path, milestones and Our Client commitments, and ensure every change is justified, transparent and traceable. Escalate to SPARK PMO if any risk. • Guard against silent slippage, hidden buffers and over-optimistic sequencing.

4. Challenging & holding the system integrator PMO to account • Act as Our Client’s day-to-day planning counterpart to the SI PMO. • Cross-check the SI’s plan, status and critical-path claims against what Our Client teams see on the ground.



• Challenge and push back where the reported plan or status is unrealistic or inconsistent, or where slippage and planning risks are not transparently reported. • Ensure the SI PMO delivers planning data and reporting at the agreed cadence, granularity and quality.

5. Planning status, reporting & SteerCo plan-on-a-page • Ensure consolidation and verification of planning status by stream (Our Client + SI); cross-check dates and RAG status for consistency and confront inconsistencies with workstream leads. • Check the delivery of a reliable plan-on-a-page and critical-path view for the SteerCo and program governance. • Provide structured planning input — status, trends, schedule risks and capacity tensions — to the Head of PMO and program leadership, and surface emerging slippage early.

Key relationships • Reports to the SPARK Head of PMO. • Collaborates with Our Client PMO, the system integrator’s program and PMO leads, Our Client business and IT workstream leads, and the Change and Communications teams.

Profile

• 7 years+ in project planning/scheduling or PMO on large transformation programs, with tangible, hands-on experience actively running the planning of ERP global deployments (core template build, test, deployment and dual run with legacy).

• Strong MS-Project expertise: milestone management, dependency management, baselining, effort planning, and integration/consolidation of multiple MS-Project and/or Excel milestone plans into a single coherent view.

• Working knowledge of Jira (backlogs, sprints) and able to connect Agile progress to the integrated plan.

• Experience with SAP S/4HANA or other ERP programs is a strong advantage.

• Comfortable in a hybrid delivery environment (Agile sprints and Waterfall phases).

• Able to constructively challenge and hold a system integrator to account while maintaining an effective working relationship.

• Excellent communication skills in English; able to present complex plans and status clearly and in a structured way (written and spoken).

• Structured, rigorous, reliable and solution oriented.

📌 Freelance senior planing lead-erp global transformatioj project (España)
🏢 ClearSource
📍 España