Cohort Lead (Two Positions)

State of Washington•Thurston County – Olympia, WA

9d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Office of Financial Management (OFM) is hiring two Cohort Leads to guide state agencies through One Washington’s enterprise transformation and Workday implementation. One Washington is replacing legacy technology with a cloud-based Workday solution for finance, procurement, budgeting, human resources, and payroll. The Cohort Lead brings together business, technical, data, and organizational change teams to support agency readiness, manage competing priorities, resolve problems, and advance implementation in alignment with the program roadmap and enterprise standards. This hybrid position is based at OFM’s physical office in Olympia, Washington, with most work allowing telework. Travel to in-person activities, meetings, and events is required according to business needs. Project core business hours are Monday through Friday. Schedules may be flexible with prior supervisory approval, and work beyond a typical 40-hour week is common to meet operational needs and go-live deliverables.

Requirements

Advanced knowledge of enterprise transformation and implementation, including ERP concepts, business process reengineering, future-state operating models, workflow design, system functionality, and organizational readiness.
Ability to understand and coordinate technical and data readiness activities, including legacy system remediation, data conversion and validation, system integration, and process testing in collaboration with technical and functional subject matter experts.
Advanced team leadership and cross-agency coordination skills, including leading multidisciplinary teams, setting priorities, assigning work, providing feedback, developing staff, addressing performance concerns, and fostering accountability, inclusion, and collaboration.
Ability to coordinate matrixed resources, interdependent workstreams, competing priorities, dependencies, and implementation milestones.
Ability to apply systems thinking and adaptability to understand interdependencies among agency operations, enterprise processes, technology, data, organizational readiness, and program objectives; anticipate impacts; and adjust while maintaining alignment with enterprise standards and outcomes.
Ability to exercise sound professional judgment, analyze complex information, assess risks and implications, resolve issues within established authority, and identify when escalation or broader program direction is needed.
Advanced stakeholder engagement, communication, and change management skills, including relationship-building, explaining complex concepts, facilitating collaboration, addressing difficult issues respectfully, assessing change impacts and adoption barriers, and coordinating transitions.
Ability to learn and grow.
Ability to meet the needs of others.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting or implementing ERP platforms such as Workday, SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, or comparable systems, particularly in finance, procurement, budgeting, or human capital management.
Experience in state government or other federated public-sector environments with shared enterprise standards, governance, and coordination across multiple agencies or organizations.
Formal education, training, or certification in organizational change management, such as Prosci or ACMP.
Experience applying project or program management methodologies such as PMI, Agile, or SAFe; PMP or comparable certification is desirable.
Proficiency with enterprise collaboration, workflow, and project management tools such as Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, Smartsheet, Azure DevOps, or comparable platforms.
Knowledge of accessibility, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging principles and their application to organizational practices, process design, stakeholder engagement, and team environments.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage a multidisciplinary cohort team, setting expectations, priorities, assignments, and accountability for agencies undergoing Workday implementation.
Lead cohort operations in alignment with One Washington enterprise standards, priorities, methodologies, and workstream direction.
Coordinate matrixed resources and specialized expertise across multiple cohorts while maintaining clear roles, priorities, and execution within the cohort.
Provide day-to-day leadership and performance management for cohort staff, including feedback, staff development, addressing performance concerns, and fostering an inclusive and accountable team environment.
Participate in cohort recruitment planning and hiring processes and provide recommendations consistent with established procedures.
Oversee agency business process reengineering and readiness activities, ensuring redesigned processes align with Workday functionality, enterprise standards, and future-state operating models.
Translate agency business requirements into applicable Workday capabilities.
Coordinate identification and resolution of policy, procedural, operational, and organizational changes needed to move agencies from current-state to future-state processes.
Participate in established program risk, action, issue, and decision management processes.
Lead cohort support for legacy system remediation, including system inventories, requirements validation, remediation planning, and coordination of testing with technical and quality assurance teams.
Oversee cohort data readiness, including data analysis, data conversion strategies, non-master data mapping, data quality assessment, and validation of converted data.
Integrate business process, business analysis, data, technical remediation, testing, and change management readiness disciplines within the cohort and with relevant enterprise workstreams.
Monitor cohort progress, agency readiness, risks, issues, dependencies, and resource needs; address barriers, escalate matters requiring program or workstream direction, and coordinate with agencies and program leaders to maintain progress.