Project Manager II, WGU Labs, Salt Lake City, UT

Western Governors University•Salt Lake, UT

4d•Onsite

About The Position

The Project Manager II oversees the execution and process of assigned projects and monitors change management strategies and outcomes. The Project Manager II will work with multiple teams, project requesters, and creative teams to develop project plans according to strategic development priorities, as defined by project requesters and leadership. This position is accountable for ensuring that the scope, dates, commitments, and project plans are communicated to all stakeholders and updated as necessary. The individual monitors and reports project status—including risks, issues affecting project schedules, and milestone achievements—to stakeholders and departmental leadership. The Project Manager II develops project plans and schedules and ensures projects meet departmental requirements, standards, policies, and deadlines. This individual is expected to keep fully informed of departmental strategies and priorities and effectively influence the work of project team members in line with those priorities. The Project Manager II is responsible for tracking deadlines, monitoring incoming requests, managing commitments, and utilizing project management tools to ensure project timelines are met, issues are escalated, identified opportunities for efficiencies and process/decisions are documented. This role is part of the WGU Labs Operations team and will support projects led across WGU Labs working with internal WGU Labs Project Team, external vendors/clients and projects/pilots at external partner schools. This role will work in WGU Labs, an affiliate of WGU. As the research and development (R&D) arm of WGU Lab’s focus is to rapidly prototype, test, build and share knowledge that will support student outcomes within WGU and across the broader field of Higher Ed.

Requirements

Strong written and oral communication skills.
Understanding of Change Management theory/techniques, and implementation into a project plan.
Ability to influence change and motivate others.
Strong demonstration of stakeholder management; getting work done through others and coordinating and communicating at a variety of levels both upward , outward and within the project team to ensure ongoing alignment, agreement and yielding high levels of influence.
Ability to use project management systems and tools.
History of successful execution of projects that impact an entire organization.
Professional integrity that represents the educational standards within higher education.
Works well in a team environment.
Solid technical and problem-solving skills.
Design thinking skills ; ability to innovate and intuiting new solutions and processes.
Technically savvy with ability to learn and navigate a variety of AI forward applications including; Claude, Asana, Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, etc.
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
Three (3) years of experience as the assigned project manager with responsibility for driving and leading project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.
Project Management Certification (preference towards PMI-PMP but open to considering certifications from other organizations).
Experience applying change management methodologies and practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience in EdTech, higher education, or other R&D environment.
Experience in project forecasting, strategic planning, risk management.
Master’s degree from an accredited institution or higher in relevant field.
Some combination of desirable certifications include: Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification preferred.
Proci Change Management certification.
Six Sigma Certification such as Green or Black Belt.
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.

Responsibilities

Ability to manage project ambiguity and ever-changing direction.
Experience working in R&D or start-up environments fueled by innovation a plus.
Strong stakeholder management skills including; internal WGU stakeholders, client/vendor management, and external pilot partners.
Focus on lean process improvement looking for areas to innovate, improve processes, document lessons learned and influencing iteration throughout the project team.
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.
Models and mentors best practices in leveraging AI in daily workflows and AI solutions for continuous improvement.
Completes and/or contributes to required reporting for example ; end of grant cycle grant reporting, end of project close out, documented lessons learned and annual reports.
Performs other related duties as assigned.