Strategic Planning Manager I

King County•Seattle, WA

9h•Hybrid

About The Position

King County Metro’s Mobility Division is seeking an experienced organizational transformation expert to deliver major, mission-critical organizational changes efforts underway in the division. This position will be primarily for major transformation initiatives, including leading a program to integrate Metro’s flexible transportation services portfolio, leading a project to streamline and modernize the division’s core administrative functions, and managing a project to increase the division’s ability to monitor and control financial performance. Changes of this scale, complexity and urgency require a leader who can see the big picture while managing interconnected changes in our workforce, organizational structure, financial and contracting approaches, and the technology we use to bring it all together. We are looking for passionate change-makers with demonstrated ability to effectively initiate projects, lead diverse workgroups, and build coalitions at all levels of a large, complex organization. The most competitive candidates bring a strong combination of the skills and knowledge required to lead the technical, operational, and people sides of transformation. This recruitment will be used to fill one (1) Strategic Planning Manager I. In addition, this selection process may be used to generate an eligibility pool for future Career Service, Special Duty Assignment, and Term Limited Temporary vacancies that may occur in this classification within this workgroup. The eligibility pool will be retained for 12 months from the date of posting and may be used at the discretion of the hiring authority.

Requirements

Demonstrated expertise leading organizational changes involving people, operational and technology.
Excellent organizational and project management skills.
Demonstrated ability to manage all phases of complex projects with diverse project teams.
Demonstrated ability facilitating group decision-making.
Demonstrated experience delivering projects in a highly matrixed organizational structure.
Ability to distill complex technical information into effective messages for a variety of audiences.
Skill in consulting, facilitating, and influencing at senior leadership levels.
Demonstrated ability to analyze, plan for, and manage major organizational changes.
Strong persuasion skills.
Skill in working collaboratively with individual contributors, customers, and senior leadership to bring positive change.
Skill in analyzing information, solving complex challenges, and making recommendations based on analysis.
Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and successfully with a diverse group of individuals from a variety of different positions and backgrounds.
Ability to create clarity among teams working on related or interdependent projects.
Ability to manage multiple and shifting priorities.

Nice To Haves

Portfolio of successful organizational transformation efforts in a large, complex operational organization.
Certifications in organizational change management (PROSCI or similar), project management (PMP or similar), and/or process improvement (LEAN/Six Sigma greenbelt or similar)
Demonstrated experience designing and implementing project team and/or portfolio governance structures.
Demonstrated experience driving adoption of major new technologies in a large organization.
Facilitation skills with demonstrated ability to design, run and facilitate meetings.
Training and experience in collaborative problem-solving, group decision-making and/or innovation processes.
Training and experience in organizational design.
Experience working in public transit systems and/or local government
Familiarity with public-sector contracting, financial management and accountability requirements.
Knowledge or experience with continuous improvement and development of standard work.

Responsibilities

Lead strategic business planning, communications, and budget development efforts.
Develop strategies to achieve Metro’s strategic goals, including overseeing the development of holistic organizational transformation strategies, operational plans, resourcing and cost management plans, and detailed project implementation plans to ensure successful change.
Participate as a core leadership team member and ensure consistency of activities with organizational mission and goals; develop annual objectives, work priorities, and work plans.
Ensure a consistent approach to strategic planning across the division; track and ensure effective implementation of strategic plans across the division.
Serve as transformation program director bringing together groups of related projects in a clear and efficiently managed way; serve as project manager on major transformation projects.
Initiate projects, including defining scope, schedule, resource planning and project team structure.
Analyze business needs, design appropriate project methodology, and plan project work.
Manage, monitor and report on completion of project tasks and deliverables.
Lead and convene cross-departmental project teams.
Track, analyze and manage risks, issues and decision-making necessary to deliver projects.
Coordinate work and manage dependencies with other Metro projects.
Manage project communications and stakeholder engagement.
Manage contract and matrixed resources as part of unified project teams, including contract procurement, vendor performance management, financial controls, and closeout.
Ensure on-time completion and closeout of project deliverables.
Ensure consistent governance and reporting across division’s portfolio of transformation projects and programs.
Conduct change readiness analysis.
Define and implement change plan to ensure adoption of behavioral, structural, and technical changes required to ensure successful transformation, including employee change communications, executive and sponsor engagement, action planning and creation of deliverables needed to support this work.
Serve as organizational change management lead and expert consultant within major projects.
Track and report progress on change plan progress.
Serve as visible change management lead across division efforts.