Lead Project Manager, Analytics

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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:

Job Description

Job Profile Summary

The Institutional Analytics and Research (IAR) team supports and enables most WGU teams, departments, and colleges to make data-informed decisions that lead to better student outcomes. Our analysts, scientists, researchers, and managers are distributed across several teams: Faculty Experience Analytics, Institutional Research, Learning Analytics, Outreach Analytics, and Student Success Analytics.

The Lead Project Manager, Analytics manages the entire lifecycle of cross-functional projects and programs, analytical processes, initiatives to increase data literacy and analytics adoption, and other strategic initiatives of high complexity, applying exceptional organization and communication skills, systems-thinking, and understanding of the human, process, and technology factors that influence analytics and research efforts. Establishes strong relationships with technical specialists and leaders across IAR, Data Engineering, MLOps, Colleges, Institutional Portfolio Management, and other university departments. Acts as catalysts and multipliers of the team's talent and impact, displaying high levels of accountability, and are highly oriented to outcomes, generating better insights and decisions that help the university enable extraordinary student outcomes.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Owns roadmaps for cross-functional programs and initiatives of high complexity, such as the evolution of executive reporting, yearly operational and financial planning, and others.
• Organizes the day-to-day work in highly complex analytics projects, programs, and initiatives, from project inception to solution delivery, with complete autonomy. This includes assembling, directing, coordinating, and assigning responsibilities to project team members across all phases (initiation, planning, execution, monitoring/controlling, and closing).
• Leads and facilitates forums like stand-up meetings, requirement discovery sessions, backlog grooming sessions, retro sessions, executive updates, steering committees, etc.
• Maintains accurate status records of tasks and activities using adequate project management tools (e.g., JIRA, ServiceNow, Smartsheet). Proactively measures results, velocity, and impact, proposing course correction measures when adequate.
• Leads communications in highly complex analytics projects, programs, and initiatives, ensuring that all relevant parties - project team, contributors, leaders, stakeholders, sponsors - stay informed throughout every project phase, from inception to delivery. Adapts messaging and style to fit diverse audiences and situations.
• Collaborates with IAR leaders in defining project communication standards across IAR, creating artifacts, and defining practices that drive transparency about initiative status, timelines, dependencies, and impact.
• Executes demand intake, triage, and other activities that lead to quick, transparent, and adequate prioritization and capacity management.
• Collaborates with IAR leaders to define and improve the organization's demand management processes and increase adoption and compliance.
• Defines and owns project and initiative backlogs and acts as the point of contact for new demand, interfacing between project customers/requirements owners and project teams.
• Assesses the complexity of the most frequent types of requirements, providing effort estimates and operating as an initial demand review gate. When adequate, challenges requests, proposes trade-offs and rephrases them for maximum impact.
• Proactively identifies risks to projects and initiatives, leads the identification of adequate mitigation plans, and drives their implementation to reduce risk likelihood and impact.
• Collaborates with IAR leaders in defining and improving project risk management practices across IAR.
• Understands the university's purpose and goals and applies that understanding to the execution of projects through logical decisions and recommendations that improve the team's contribution and impact.
• Collaborates with IAR leaders in defining project management standards across IAR and actively drives adoption and compliance, ensuring seamless integration with the IAR sub-team workflows.
• Collaborates with IAR leaders to improve the university's analytics processes and translate IAR's strategic vision into concrete projects and initiatives.
• Introduces and guides team members through new methodologies and ways of working, helps teams identify and remove impediments, and eliminates friction to enable faster and more impactful outcomes.
• Establishes strong relationships with project management experts and leaders across the university, mentors less experienced project managers through constructive feedback and technical and institutional knowledge sharing and plays a leading role in increasing the maturity of IAR and the university's project management practices.
• Creates information about processes, projects, reports, dashboards, analyses, and/or data organized, cataloged, and accessible by others to increase the team's knowledge and efficiency.
• Identifies, selects, and customizes tools, builds processes, and continuously improves knowledge management standards across IAR.
• Ensures projects, programs, and initiatives are managed and executed in observance of relevant standards and policies, including but not limited to PMO guidelines, data privacy, and security.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Excellent interpersonal communication and conflict resolution skills, collaborating effectively with technical. specialists and non-technical peers, partners, and leaders, including C-level executives.
• Subject matter expert in applying project management principles, frameworks, and methodologies such as Agile, Waterfall, and SDLC.
• Experienced in applying change management frameworks and methodologies such as ADKAR, Kotter's, 7S, and others.
• Comfortable leading and facilitating workshops, requirement discovery sessions, project debriefs, and other collaboration sessions involving technical and non-technical contributors and audiences.
• Ability to perform with very high levels of autonomy, reliability, self-direction, and with a bias for action. Manages conflicting and concurrent activities with minimal need of supervision. Is strongly outcome-oriented, persisting in achieving objectives despite obstacles and setbacks.
• Works actively to improve skills and knowledge through internal and external, formal and informal, structured and unstructured learning. Is a lifelong learner and embodies a growth mindset.
• Proficient in the MS Office suite, including Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and Sharepoint.
• Proficient in productivity and project management tools like JIRA, ServiceNow, Smartsheet, and similar applications.
• Proficient in flowchart and diagramming tools like Miro, Visio, Lucidchart, and similar applications.

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field
• 7 years of experience as project manager in Tech/Software Development with demonstrated experience in SDLC and Agile/Scrum. This experience should include 5 years of collaborating with technical specialists and leaders in executing workflows in several of the following areas: CI/CD, MLOps, Data Engineering, Analytics Processes and Infrastructure, Data Quality, and Data Science.

Experience in lieu of education

Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.

Preferred Qualifications

• Project Management certification (PMP, PMI, CAPM, SAFe, or comparable)

Position & Application Details

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.