Project Manager II

Western Governors University•Salt Lake City, UT

19h•Onsite

About The Position

WGU is dedicated to expanding access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs and is committed to being a great workplace for diverse, student-focused professionals. The Project Manager II is responsible for overseeing the execution and process of assigned projects, as well as monitoring change management strategies and outcomes. This role involves collaborating with multiple teams, project requesters, and creative teams to develop project plans aligned with strategic development priorities. The Project Manager II ensures that project scope, dates, commitments, and plans are communicated to all stakeholders and updated as needed. They monitor and report project status, including risks, issues affecting schedules, and milestone achievements, to stakeholders and departmental leadership. The individual is expected to develop project plans and schedules, ensuring projects meet departmental requirements, standards, policies, and deadlines, while staying informed of departmental strategies and priorities to effectively influence team members' work.

Requirements

Strong written and oral communication skills.
Understanding of change management methodologies and practices.
History of successful execution of projects that impact an entire organization.
Professional integrity that represents the educational standards within higher education.
Excellent leadership and project management skills.
Works well in a team environment.
Ability to influence change and motivate others.
Solid technical and problem-solving skills.
Ability to plan and meet schedules.
Ability to use project management systems and tools.
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
Three (3) years of experience as the assigned project manager with responsibility for project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.
Experience applying change management methodologies and practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience in higher education, WGU, and program development preferred.
Master’s degree from an accredited institution or higher in relevant field.
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification preferred.
Green or Black Belt Certification.

Responsibilities

Maintains a thorough and detailed understanding of all department projects, purpose and status and ensures projects meet outlined processes.
Monitors, reports on, and makes visible project status, issues, resource requirements, dependencies, and project plans.
Keeps stakeholders and departmental leadership informed of project statuses, including, but not limited to, milestone achievements, toll gate progress, risks, and any issues that may adversely affect project schedules.
Documents project deliverables, outputs, and notes that capture why key project decisions were made and keeps project management records and systems accurate and up to date.
Understands departmental strategic priorities and influences the actions and work efforts of team members in line with those priorities.
Works closely with product team, content creators and other department stakeholders to align priorities and progress on all projects.
Manages traffic of incoming new requests - validates that appropriate requirements are included.
Produces timely and accurate reports as directed. Regular weekly progress report of Project Tasks completed, priorities for upcoming week, dependencies.
Provides input to develop or refine project management procedures and processes for the purpose of improving efficiency.
Develops realistic project plans and schedules by analyzing organizational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, task dependencies, resource requirements, work breakdown, and departmental strategy and priorities.
Ensures projects meet organizational standards and are managed in accordance with applicable policies, processes, and procedures.
Monitors change management strategies and outcomes of strategies.
Conducts retrospective work on closed/ completed projects to document lessons learned, and prepares retrospective documentation.
May conduct data analysis, research course and program level information as requested during the analysis phases of other projects.
Track project costs in order to meet budget.
Facilitating change requests to ensure that all parties are informed of the impacts on schedule and budget.
Performs other related duties as assigned.