Western Governors University
Technical Program Manager, Portfolio
Western Governors University, Salt Lake City, UT
If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.Essential Functions and Responsibilities: The Technical Program Manager, Portfolio is an Enabler/Catalyst for the support of the organizational strategy that works with multiple stakeholders and teams to orchestrate the release of value delivery across projects.Works collaboratively with other Program Managers, Product Managers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, business, and Ed Tech stakeholders to identify and ensure strategic alignment, track and resolve dependencies and promote successful conflict resolution.Is tenacious in building cross program/team relationships.Facilitates the implementation and leads program governance.Tracks and reports on program health and delivery progress.Implements measurement systems that provide empirical insights into value delivery and opportunities to improve. Limits work in progress and ensures successful commitments and objectives that are outcome and impact based.Drives toward continuous operational improvement through analyzing data and inspecting/adapting practices.Is bold and data-driven when uncovering and communicating issues.Collaborates with Product Managers, Technical Leaders, and other key stakeholders to create and maintain a program roadmap of value-based and outcome-driven deliverables that align tightly with organizational strategy.Focuses on communication and documentation of objectives to maximize transparency and alignment.Asks the difficult questions that drives the successful delivery of outcomes.Actively participates in community development of project and agile roles and the establishment of, and adherence to guardrails, policies, and best practices.Acts as an agent of change as we strengthen our agile mindset across the organization. Works with Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters to continuously improve agility and foster an environment of self-organization and highly accountable teams.Is an emotionally and situationally aware leader who supports teams with meeting their commitments through removal of impediments, and facilitation of resolution and action-oriented conversations. Empathize with others, and create an environment of mutual influence, openness, and respect.Work with leadership to establish and facilitate value-add Program Increment (PI) events on a recurring and predictable cadenceKnowledge, Skill and Abilities:Experience in managing enterprise level programs.Adept at coordinating and delivering large and complex solutions that require the coordination of multiple stakeholders, project teams, Scrum teams, Product domains, and vendors.Experience with SAFe, Scrum@Scale or other enterprise agile frameworks.Effective trainer of individuals at all organizational levels and an expert in agile practices and tools.Emotionally intelligent and a true leader-who-serves; there to help the teams do their best work. Is humble, introspective, and willing to experiment and try new ways of working.Skilled at protecting the teams, helping them to focus and accelerate value delivered.Exhibit a demonstrated ability to understand value streams and execute on organizational strategy, translating tactical/technical approaches into user value statements.Expert facilitator with bias for resolution and action over extensive deliberation.Demonstrates critical thinking and exhibits excellent judgment.Takes pride and ownership over the quality of our products.Competencies: Organizational Impact: Responsible for implementing programs to support initiatives and projects established by university or department leadership; assist with the establishment of operational plans for department with short-term impact on results. May deliver input into new processes, standards, or plans that impact overall university or department results. Problem Solving & Decision Making: Leverages a systems-thinking approach for improving existing processes and systems within the department using significant conceptualizing, reasoning, and interpretation. Problems and issues faced are numerous, difficult, and require detailed information gathering and analysis. Typically affect multiple areas or specialties. Problems and issues span a wide range of challenging and unique situations. Communication & Influence: Collaborates cross-functionally with parties within and outside of the department and may occasionally communicate with external parties. May influence others to accept the job area’s views, practices, concepts, and approaches and conduct briefings with leaders within the University or department. Leadership & Talent Management Responsible for providing guidance, coaching, and training to project managers and other employees in the department, Function, or Office. Provides direction to project team members, including mentoring, feedback on performance. Demonstrates the WGU leadership principles in all aspects of service to students, employees, and partners of WGU. Job Qualifications:Minimum Qualifications:Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent7+ years of relevant experience (Project Management, Scrum Master, Release Train Engineer, Program Manager)Experience working in an agile environment.Experienced servant leader, adept at facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continuous improvement, empowerment, and improvement of organizational transparencyMust be an excellent communicator, able to gain the trust of the teams, stakeholders, and leadership. Excellent written, oral, presentation, and interpersonal skills.Proficient in tools such as Jira, Rally, VersionOne, Microsoft Suite, Lucid, etc.Solid understanding of both Agile, Lean, DevOps and Waterfall methods and principlesPreferred Qualifications:Master’s degree in relevant fieldExperience in higher education, education technology, eLearning development, or relevant field.Certified Program Manager, SAFe 5 Release Train Engineer or other enterprise framework.Experience querying data and building reports using PowerBI, Tableau or similar tool.Strong technical understanding and ability to grasp engineering, infrastructure, and security concepts.Ability to articulate and achieve agile vision through effective organizational change management.Experience with large systems integrations.Must have broad knowledge of project management.The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is: Pay Range: $140,200.00 - $217,200.00How to apply: apply onlineFull-time Regular Positions (FT classification, standard working hours = 40)This is a full-time, regular position that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.The University is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.SummaryLocation: Salt Lake City OfficeType: Full time