Senior Program Manager Details

Senior Program Manager

The Walt Disney Company (Corporate) - Burbank, CA

Employment Type : Full-Time

Job Overview

The Senior Technology Program Manager will be responsible for managing enterprise-level programs and/or multiple projects within the Disney Enterprise Technology portfolio. The Senior Program Manager within ETech, is a senior program level role with the Technology Process and Performance team responsible for program level ownership of complex large-scale technology-driven projects across a diverse portfolio supporting all aspects of ETech and its partners. The Senior Program Manager will also be responsible for developing a consolidated view of the program, and for program deliverables including calendars, cross-project dependencies, risk analysis, stakeholder coordination, and regular communication of status. This individual will work closely with various project owners to define the project team and assign responsibilities. The ideal candidate is passionate about coaching, development, and growth as well as the agile movement and the value that it brings to organizations. Additionally, this role has the responsibility for coaching and mentoring program management team members at various levels.

Primary responsibilities include guiding process development at a team level and managing high-risk, high-impact, strategic technology programs and projects across a multi-disciplinary, multi-function group of technologists and business professionals. This requires experience communicating across audiences, effectively defining and utilizing escalation paths, and updating executive stakeholders.

The Senior Program Manager works in a dynamic, collaborative environment and reports to Enterprise Technology, Senior Manager, Program Management and may support technology programs and projects across from ETech Digital Experience Platforms, Core Systems, and Platforms, Network Infrastructure, Cloud or Operations portfolios.

• Program and Project Management Delivery
  • Accountable and confidently leads and directs cross-functional project teams through highly visible and highly strategic transformation programs, which often require considerable resources and high levels of functional integration and interaction with project sponsor team from start to finish
  • Create full-scale master program and project schedules and communication plans consisting of multiple projects or components
  • Ensure proactive scheduling of key deliverables, milestones, and deliverable tasks
  • Establish program and project financial forecasts including resource plans and other expense plans
  • Sponsors process and practice improvements in the project management environment and serves as a catalyst for project management excellence
  • Demonstrates a clear understanding of the program’s vision, objectives, scale and scope of work, expected outcomes, business value and impact, timelines, roadmaps, resource level requirements
  • May provide leadership and coaching for a small team of project managers assigned to the program
  • Establishes strong partnerships and engagement with project stakeholders
  • Creates governance practices and protocols to control and monitor the program/projects
  • Provides management oversight, aligns and leads cross-functional and international project teams to ensure critical day-to-day program/project deliverables progress forward to deliver specified requirements, objectives, and value
  • Identifies gaps in the project team’s accountability and ownership of deliverables
  • Foster a team environment of self-organization, retrospect to learn and adapt with the goal of delivering the highest value to our guests and cast

• Vendor and International Team Management
  • Oversees and align with 3rd party vendor and international team’s PM to ensure deliverables are complete in a timely manner
  • Demonstrate flexibility to align with international time zones as necessary
  • Evaluates and harmonize vendor’s timelines/schedules and cross-project dependencies to ensure alignment with overall program objectives
  • Drives escalations to remediate risks/blockers impeding vendor’s forward progression, as necessary

• Financial Management
  • Responsible for finance/budget responsibilities for programs of high complexity and large budgets (>$60M).
  • May support the driving the outcome of the Project Approval request and managing RFP processes.
  • Analyzes, measures and recognizes the financial impact of various project actions, participates in analyzing and using financial data to identify key project issues, and maintains budget tracking and monitors budget expenditures

• Status Reporting
  • Prepares program/project status reports to demonstrate project overall health, key performance indicator (KPI), risk, issues, accomplishments, next steps, and escalation requests
  • Proactively identifies and resolves resource constraints, issues, and risks on programs/projects to meet program commitments
  • Prepares executive-level project status presentations and dashboards
  • Creates data visualization elements to provide a graphic demonstration of project analytics and metrics

• Communication
  • Leads with practicality and wisdom in the midst of competing priorities and diverse personalities. Operates as an independent and dynamic program leader. Highly adept at influencing without direct authority
  • Facilitates project team meetings effectively, ensuring the desired outcomes are achieved
  • Distributes timely and effective project meeting updates and call to action updates across project teams
  • Utilizes highly developed communication skills to facilitate project-related conversations with technology senior leaders/managers/directors and service owners alike, and driving tasks and project dependencies to completion across multiple supporting teams
  • Escalates the need for guidance and support to direct manager effectively

• Project Management Lifecycle Disciplines
  • Strong knowledge of the integrated systems lifecycle development utilizing different – and sometimes – multiple development models (e.g., agile, waterfall, hybrid, etc.)
  • Thorough understanding of product and software development lifecycle processes, procedures and tools and/or thorough understanding of network infrastructure deployment.
  • Thorough understanding of technical project delivery with a focus on Agile delivery and Agile delivery tools such as Jira, Rally, VersionOne etc.
  • Supports project management projects in the enterprise software space (SaaS, PaaS, and On-Prem) with integrations across diverse environments.
  • Well-versed at using modern work management and collaboration tools (Smartsheet, JIRA, MS Project on the Web, Confluence, SharePoint/Teams, Slack)
  • Manages project document repositories are maintained and updated

• Technical Depth
  • Strong Technical services working knowledge in one or more domains with the ability to flex across other domains, including workplaces services platforms and services, on-prem and SaaS/PaaS content and collaboration tools, websites & portals, application delivery, email/messaging platforms, video and voice solutions deployed at scale, workplace devices, support, and authentication; Network and Infrastructure working knowledge: Datacenter migration, wireless refresh, network segmentation, Cloud migration.

• Guidance in Program Management Discipline
  • Hands-on leadership guiding teams to think Lean and be Agile
  • Acts as a resource to program management peers with less experience

• 8+ years of applicable technology program management experience in a cross-functional technical software and technical hardware delivery environment, preferably for a large company
• Proven knowledge and experience in the technology field and technology project delivery
• 4+ years experience serving in a leadership role on a small to mid-sized Agile development team that was diligently applying SAFe or Scrum principles, practices, and theory, with a focus on Agile delivery and Agile delivery tools such as Jira, Rally, Version One, etc.
• Proven experience as a leader and decision-maker with at least 5 years of experience in leading large technology, multidisciplinary efforts across a large-scale matrix organization

• Proven program-level experience in leading complex technology projects or multi-threaded efforts
• Proven facilitator that can lead project meetings and large workshops driving commitments, accountability, and deliverables
• Demonstrated exceptional critical thinking, strategic planning, and process management skills
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing software development project plans
• Demonstrated experience with software development lifecycle methodologies (focused on Agile, Lean)
• Demonstrated strong analytical and problem-solving skills to achieve business results
• Strong interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills and the ability to work effectively across a wide range of constituencies in a diverse corporate and client environment
• Proven ability to deliver projects on-time and on budget while communicating with key senior leaders
• Ability to inspire, motivate and lead a team to produce quality work
• Demonstrated inclusive leadership that embraces diversity
• Ability to communicate effectively to executive leadership in both business and technology roles
• Excellent organizational, communication, and time management skills
• Demonstrated ability to develop teams, mentor staff
• Understanding of modern software development and infrastructure tools, processes and practices, including Jira/Confluence, Agile Development, Cloud, DevOps, Data Management, and SaaS/PaaS.
• End-user experience and high level of competency in use of modern program and project management tools, such ServiceNow, PPM, Clarity, Smartsheet, MS Project Online, etc.
• Experience organizing teams through Agile ceremonies, e.g. product backlog refinement, preplanning, planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, retrospectives.
• Proficiency with a wide range of productivity tools, including collaboration software (e.g., Slack, MS Teams), standard MS Office tools (e.g., Outlook Online, OneDrive).

BA/BS in business, computer science preferred or other technical field or appropriate work experience

PMI or Scrum Alliance (or similar) certifications in Program Manager, Project Manager, or Scrum Master competencies are preferred

• Experience in Information Security a plus.
• Prior Disney experience is preferred
• Proficiency with Enterprise Project Portfolio Management tools
• Experience implementing broader Agile Development techniques as part of User Stories, Test Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing; SAFe etc.

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with the following business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its preeminent name in the entertainment industry today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every member of the family. Disney’s stories, characters and experiences reach consumers and guests from every corner of the globe. With operations in more than 40 countries, our employees and cast members work together to create entertainment experiences that are both universally and locally cherished.

The Disney Enterprise Technology (ETech) mission is to deliver technology solutions that align to business unit strategies while enabling enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation. The ETech organization drives competitive advantage by enhancing our consumer experiences, enabling business growth, and advancing operational excellence. ETech is guided by the principles of being service-focused and easy to do business with, being biased for action and innovation, and being efficient through leverage and continuous improvement.