The New York Times’s newly formed Digital Operations team is looking for a seasoned, motivated Program Director to oversee the team focused on our core products – managing our growing project management team and ensuring portfolios, programs and projects drive real business value and are disciplined in planning but agile in execution.
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You are a proven leader of multiple successful teams. You have a proven record of recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent. You understand and strategize how your lines of business relate on an enterprise/portfolio level and tie into the overall company objectives. You regularly report portfolio level status and risks to Senior Leadership and influence company leaders to adopt Agile planning framework. You understand the challenges that teams face when they grow from 10 to 50 to 100, because you’ve been there. You are a strategic thinker for your team and for the Times as a whole. You lead your team with inspiration, vision, and guidance, and you spend most of your time protecting the team from distractions and removing obstacles. You have managed multiple budgets on various business lines. You have a proven record of interfacing with business operations units, including work on securing funding and forecasting. When formulating staffing plans and strategy, you always consider the future of the company and the role and longevity of your team within it. You are well-versed in multiple project management methodologies and techniques and are comfortable in a coaching role. You want to be at the center of a digital organization working with product, technology, the newsroom, design, data & insights, marketing and advertising partners.
Responsibilities:
Influence executives, leaders, business units, and technology teams on our agile planning framework (Waterfall, Lean and Agile) principles, values, how to build, grow, and maintain a thriving development organization at scale.
Manages a team of Project Managers and/or Program Managers or Directors who take ownership in day to day running of the programs. Does not necessarily act as a project manager on a day to day basis, but instead coaches and leads direct reports, but is able to get into details as needed.
Works across portfolio to mitigate risk, remove blockers and keep team focused on the work at hand.
Ensures that team members work closely with Product, Design, and Technology Leads to formulate team roadmap for the business line and ensure that the roadmap is followed and adjusted as needed.
Ensures that team members take lead role in ensuring that team adheres to published roadmap and helps team adjust to keep them on track.
Ensures that all team members, including him/herself act as advocate for Project Management Process within the group
Ensures that their team members keep all leads informed of key decisions made within group and report status to him/her on a regular basis.
Creates (or drives the creation of) budget and staffing needs, working closely with team leads and Finance
Work closely with Product, Technology, and Design senior leads to formulate strategy and vision
Work closely with the business stakeholders to ensure that all projects are moving forward in a timely manner and to remove any barriers to success on the business side
Create a safe environment where people learn new things, try them out, and help find better ways to do things
Influences business decisions and processes not only within the Project Management Organization, but also within other disciplines.
Experience with the implementation and execution of Scrum in an environment where individuals are unfamiliar with the methodology. Demonstrated ability to mentor scrum teams the agile practices (processes, tools, artifacts and ceremonies), assisting the team to self-organize, leading the team towards a path of continuous improvement. Provide Agile Leadership coaching and training to Scrum Masters, Scrum teams, Product Owners, functional managers, and executives. Collaborate directly with software and operations teams to coach and guide them on the mechanics of agile methods to achieve optimal team effectiveness.
Drive adoption of best practices across both current waterfall and future Agile, deviating from “the book” where appropriate.
Ability to motivate and inspire team members; excellent interaction skills.
Ability to work across all levels of the organizations and within matrixed environments.
Help teams develop and implement metrics that track effective and efficient delivery.
Coach teams facing tough challenges e.g. related to how they work and interact together.
Facilitate learning through workshops, meetings, and team off-sites.
Drive delivery satisfaction with key business stakeholders. Manages peer-level client relationships (expectations, communications, negotiations, escalation, feedback, etc.).
Participates in recruitment and hiring activities, including interviewing and conducting hiring exercises for others in the division.
If you were working for us, here’s a sample of what other tasks you would have done in the last two weeks:
Developed networking contacts to learn how other organizations have transformed themselves and identify best practices to leverage
Helped your portfolio team define metrics of success for the stated Q3 goals, input into the creation of the portfolio’s OKR.
Participated in budget creation for the portfolio.
Worked with product, design, and tech leads to strategize the next 12 month roadmap.
Coached a new manager in helping navigate an employee conflict.
If you were going above and beyond our expectations, you also would have done these:
Influence executives, leaders, business units, and technology teams on our agile planning framework (Waterfall, Lean and Agile) principles, values, how to build, grow, and maintain a thriving development organization at scale.
Provide Agile Leadership coaching and training to Scrum Masters, Scrum teams, Product Owners, functional managers, and executives.
Stay abreast of new Agile techniques, methods, and strategies; Demonstrate thought leadership by engaging with enterprise through speaking, blogging, etc.
Qualifications:
Bachelor’s Degree required. Preferred study in Computer Science, Engineering, Business or a related discipline.
CSM, CSPO, CSD, LSSBB, PMP or 7+ years Program and Portfolio Management Experience
Detailed-oriented performer with tremendous focus on proactive problem-solving
Demonstrated leadership and team building skills in a demanding work environment
Experience managing teams of various sizes and skill levels
Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including written, oral, and presentation skills to work with team members, peers, and business partners effectively
A strategic thinker who strives for continuous improvement
Experience managing change and demonstrated flexib
A few reasons why you might want to work here
You’ll be helping to power, distribute and push the limits of what’s possible for our award-winning journalism. A highlight for the entire staff each year is watching the announcement of the Pulitzers in the newsroom with our colleagues. We’ve won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other organization!
We are committed to career development, and we offer a formal mentoring program as well as generous tuition reimbursement that includes non-matriculating courses.
We have frequent panel discussions and talks by industry leaders. In the past, we’ve hosted Sheryl Sandberg, Melinda Gates and Ta-Nahesi Coates.
We believe diversity fuels innovation and creativity, and we have a variety of employee groups dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.
We offer a generous parental leave policy, which was recently expanded in response to employee feedback.
Similarly, we offer competitive health and dental insurance, as well as 401k matching.
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