Design Program Manager

Job Description

Design Program Manager

Location: Remote

Duration: 12 months

Pay: ~$84/hour, DOE

Planet Interactive is looking for a Design Program Manager to join our well-known lifestyle brand technology client on a 12-month contract. This is a full-time, 40 hour per week role working a remote schedule.

Responsibilities

• Elevate the quality of work and the agility of team members by building and facilitating processes that increase Design Team efficiency, consistency, and visibility
• Drive operational efficiencies at the Design Org level to create process predictability and repeatability
• Steward the project and team goals by creating cross-functional clarity and organizational visibility through regularly communicating in-project updates and overall design bandwidth and prioritization
• Proactively plan and manage design projects within desired cost, deliverables, and quality parameters.
• Partner with Design leadership and primary stakeholders to create a strategic project plan for the assigned design team based on the organization’s strategic and business needs
• Partner with Design leads to define primary stakeholders, determine scope, and gain leadership and xfn support for design programs based on the predefined project goals
• Execute design programs ensuring the team meets deadlines, tracking against design milestones and following up on action items through owning all program documentation and operations including communication plans, forums, and meeting cadences as required, detecting blockages, and facilitating escalation
• Work cross functionally with teams internal and external to Design to turn ambiguous opportunities into actionable outcomes, including running periodic product/design vision and planning exercises
• Define and standardize new processes from the ground up to streamline collaboration between stakeholders and manage design partnerships across multiple teams, identifying opportunities to increase the efficiency and discipline within the organization
• Advocate for the customer, ensure design, content & research is part of the product development process
• Manage risk by proactively raising issues around programs before they become a roadblock, and work quickly to resolve any issues that may arise
• Evaluate plans to identify risk and ensure alignment of goals, plans, and priorities across teams and functions; create capacity plans to ensure efficient resource distribution
• Create transparency by acting as the point of contact for programs, providing regular updates and decisions to stakeholders and ensuring updates are visible within the company
• Report on the success of programs and completing project closeout steps, post-mortems, and/or leading any followup iterative work

Qualifications:

• 5+ years product design program management experience or equivalent
• Proficient in JIRA, other project management software a plus
• SCRUM, Agile, or PMP certifications
• Demonstrated proficiency in design program management across multiple product surfaces
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, as well as exceptional organizational and time management skills.