Senior Manager, Intelligent Process Automation

Bank of Montreal•Chicago, IL

About The Position

This role is for a Senior Manager in Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) within the Strategy & Change Job Family Group. The position is responsible for spearheading the intelligent automation practice, leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Data & Analytics, and Technology to drive performance efficiencies. The Senior Manager will establish the foundation and governance for IPA, aiming to maximize ROI, reduce costs, mitigate risks, streamline processes, and enhance customer experience. This involves collaborating with internal stakeholders to understand and challenge existing processes, developing solutions, and demonstrating business value. The role requires understanding business needs, identifying automation opportunities, crafting business and technical requirements, defining scope, mitigating risks, and leading projects through all phases, including managing issues and timelines. The Senior Manager is also expected to foster a culture aligned with BMO's purpose, values, and strategy, promoting diversity and inclusion, and building interdependent teams. Key aspects include attracting and developing talent, improving team performance, and providing coaching. The role involves preparing business cases, partnering with Technology and business stakeholders to define project parameters, and managing risks during delivery. It also includes providing thought leadership, leading the design and implementation of robotic solutions, and acting as a Robotics Subject Matter Expert to translate business processes into strategic smart process solutions, including Cognitive Automation. The Senior Manager will work with platform vendors to influence product roadmaps, foster relationships to evolve IPA standards, define analytics requirements, and educate stakeholders on smart automation initiatives. The role encompasses leading change management programs, developing communication strategies, and contributing to the refinement of project intake and delivery methodologies. Furthermore, the Senior Manager will identify process improvements, define and improve processes for initiative intake, delivery, and maintenance, and assist in developing measurement frameworks. The position requires expertise in implementation costing and sizing, day-to-day problem-solving across the project lifecycle, and evaluating IPA strategy and emerging technologies. It involves documenting enterprise standards, collaborating with Technology on infrastructure needs, creating POCs, staying abreast of industry trends, and developing enterprise-wide IPA strategy, governance, and control frameworks. The Senior Manager will work with business process experts to identify use cases, define business cases, and analyze/transform processes using RPA, machine learning, and AI. The role also involves leading and managing all phases of the IPA project lifecycle, ensuring adherence to standards, establishing project management rigor, managing risks and issues, overseeing sprint execution, and solving complex problems. This position operates at a group/enterprise-wide level, serving as a specialist resource to senior leaders and stakeholders, applying expertise to unique situations, and implementing changes in response to shifting trends, all while applying BMO's Risk Management Framework.

Requirements

Typically 5 - 10 years of relevant experience.
Post-secondary degree in related field of study or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Bachelor’s degree with concentration in computer science, engineering, information systems, information technology or other related majors such as business & administration.
In-depth knowledge of Robotics / Intelligent Process Automation, Machine Learning, and Data Driven solutions.
Experience in working with senior business and technology stakeholders and subject matter experts to implement projects.
Participated in cross-functional programs from conceptualization to delivery and ongoing operations.
Experience in process mapping and transformation.
Experience in project planning and execution, including scoping, budgeting, and risk / issue management.
Experience with Workfusion, UiPath application and other tools.
Seasoned professional with a combination of education, experience and industry knowledge.
Verbal & written communication skills - In-depth / Expert.
Analytical and problem solving skills - In-depth / Expert.
Influence skills - In-depth / Expert.
Collaboration & team skills; with a focus on cross-group collaboration - In-depth / Expert.
Able to manage ambiguity.
Data driven decision making - In-depth / Expert.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree with concentration in machine learning, data science a plus.
Experience in managing an SDLC a Plus.
Experience in leading product roadmaps a plus.

Responsibilities

Spearheads the intelligent automation practice delivering the next wave of performance efficiencies enabled by Artificial Intelligence, Data & Analytics, and Technology.
Creates and applies strategies to work with internal stakeholders to establish the foundation and governance for Intelligent process automation to maximize return on their investment, reduce costs, mitigate risks, streamline processes and improve the customer experience.
Collaborates with internal stakeholders to understand and challenge their current processes and develop solutions to build confidence by demonstrating success and uncovering opportunities to deliver business value.
Understands business needs, identifies opportunities for Intelligent automation, crafts business & technical requirements, defines scope, mitigates risks, leads project, and manages issues and timelines.
Manages all project requirements to execute approved plans.
Fosters a culture aligned to BMO purpose, values and strategy and role models BMO values and behaviours in all that they do.
Ensures alignment between values and behaviour that fosters diversity and inclusion.
Regularly connects work to BMO’s purpose, sets inspirational goals, defines clear expected outcomes, and ensures clear accountability for follow through.
Builds interdependent teams that collaborate across functional and operating groups to create the highest value for all stakeholders.
Attracts, retains, and enables the career development of top talent.
Improves team performance, recognizes and rewards performance, coaches employees, supports their development, and manages poor performance.
Understands business needs, and collaborate with internal stakeholders to prioritize opportunity areas.
Works with internal stakeholders to prepare a business case to facilitate green-lighting of initiatives.
Partners with internal stakeholders in Technology and the business to define project scope, budget, resourcing plan, and timelines.
Collaborates to deliver initiatives, managing and communicating risks/issues.
Provides thought leadership and problem solving support across various in-flight projects.
Leads the design, development and implementation of robotic solutions that meet business objectives.
Participates in interviews, brainstorming sessions and workshops with key stakeholders to document current and future state business process.
Translates current business processes into strategic smart process solutions – including Cognitive Automation – as a Robotics Subject Matter Expert.
Builds high quality robotics solutions that are intuitive for senior audiences, simple to maintain, and drive business outcomes.
Work closely with internal stakeholders to determine current capabilities, business needs and priorities.
Collaborates with the platform vendor (e.g. Workfusion) to influence the product roadmap to ensure BMO’s business needs are effectively understood and prioritized.
Fosters relationships with internal stakeholders to raise awareness and evolve standards that support Intelligent Process Automation.
Defines business requirements for analytics & reporting to ensure data insights inform business decision making.
Educates business stakeholders to evaluate and implement smart automation initiatives.
Guides internal stakeholders through the intake, business case, and delivery of smart automation initiatives.
Leads change management programs of varying scope and type, including readiness assessments, planning, stakeholder management, execution, evaluation and sustainment of initiatives.
Leads the development of the communication strategy focusing on positively influencing or changing behaviour.
Collaborates across BMO to develop communications strategies and ensure consistency of messaging, in order to positively influence or change behaviour.
Contributes to refine the project intake process to standardize and streamline for future projects.
Contributes to standardize the project delivery methodology and approach.
Identifies and recommends process improvements and best practices for future projects and initiatives.
Defines, implements, and improves processes for intake, delivery, and ongoing maintenance of initiatives.
Contributes to define and evolve standard practices to support the needs of Smart Automation Initiatives.
Assists with developing goals, measurement framework, and strategies to monitor effectiveness of projects.
Becomes an expert in implementation costing and sizing, including identification of opportunities to optimize spend.
Acts as the day-to-day problem solving during intake, implementation, testing, deployment, production.
Evaluates intelligent automation practice (IPA) strategy and approach and conducts research on emerging IPA approaches and technologies.
Documents and socializes enterprise standards and practices related to IPA.
Collaborates with Technology to understand and finalize information technology infrastructural and environment needs.
Creates proof of concept (POCs), demos, videos and other items as required to prospect new opportunities.
Stays abreast of current business and industry trends relevant to IPA.
Works to develop IPA strategy, governance and control frameworks for the enterprise.
Works with business process experts to identify and document best use cases for automation, defines business cases and makes recommendations based on an understanding of the business strategy and stakeholder needs.
Analyzes and transforms business processes and designs a strategy and solution leveraging robotics process automation, machine learning and other AI capabilities.
Creates and maintains an initiative intake process.
Develops and refines leading practice IPA approach and methodology.
Provides advice and guidance to assigned business/group on implementation of solutions.
Crafts business and technical requirements in partnership with the business and technology teams.
Leads and manages all phases of the IPA project lifecycle, including design, development, testing. deployment and sustainment of solutions.
Helps ensure project adherence to established processes, standards and best practices for IPA.
Finalizes project governance, scope, effort estimates and defines project timelines and exit criteria.
Establishes the project management rigour including publishing status updates, meeting notes, action items.
Organizes kick-off workshops to engage the business and technical teams to start the project.
Maintains a risk and issues log and works with stakeholders to close issues and mitigate risks.
Manages delivery to agreed-upon milestones and sprints, proactively communicating bottlenecks to leadership.
Maintains the backlog of features and works with business and technology to confirm trade-offs and priority.
Owns the sprint execution and delivery while collaborating with business and technology stakeholders.
Solves problems through a combination of escalation, including recommending options, reviewing trade-offs, facilitating decisions with senior leaders, and following up to execute on approved decisions.
Builds effective relationships with internal/external stakeholders.
Ensures alignment between stakeholders.
Breaks down strategic problems, and analyses data and information to provide insights and recommendations.
Operates at a group/enterprise-wide level and serves as a specialist resource to senior leaders and stakeholders.
Applies expertise and thinks creatively to address unique or ambiguous situations and to find solutions to problems that can be complex and non-routine.
Implements changes in response to shifting trends.
Take measured risks while protecting the bank by applying our Risk Management Framework in the execution of your role, in line with our Risk Culture and within our approved Risk Appetite, making sound and risk informed decisions that align to business strategy, protect assets, and adhere to applicable policy documents (Frameworks, Policies, Standards, Procedures and Supporting documents), laws and regulations.