Digital Product & Platform Programme Manager

Short Summary of the Division

Working within dynamic and fast paced programmes, the Digital Product & Platform Programme Manager will report to the Director of Digital Product for the delivery of a number of interrelated workstreams across platform roll-outs and legacy platform lifecycle management, new platform feature launches, sales engagement, customer support and launch to market.  The Programme Manager will manage the workstream leads to ensure all milestones remain on track and that target dates are achieved for the programmes.

The Digital Product & Platform Programme Manager takes responsibility for the successful delivery of the programme to quality, budget and scope, leading to business critical customer-facing product launches and sales of new products.

The Digital Product & Platform Programme Manager engages and oversees the allocated internal resources and manages any risks and issues related to the Programme deliverables.

Responsibilities

• Responsible to the Director of Digital Product for the successful delivery of the programme  requirements and related business benefits to the agreed time, budget, quality and scope. Blend of working with Agile technical teams and waterfall business workstreams needs to be planned and taken into account.
• Management of the overall workstreams. This would include chairing and driving forward information-sharing and progress at regular Programme Board meetings, tracking progress against plan, writing reports, managing senior stakeholders and keeping the Programme Team and Programme Board updated on progress.
• Responsible for contributing to and overseeing release plans. This would include identifying the milestones, dependencies, resources, risks, issues, mitigations and deliverables.  To ensure that the workstream plans are baselined and available to all team members as well as all adjacent service-providing groups.  Ensuring that cross workstream communication and working groups are taking place in order to resolve issues.
• To create and communicate regularly to all team members and stakeholders objectives, schedules and deadlines, detailed budgets, and all other Programme parameters and constraints; during life of Programme, troubleshoot and respond quickly to issues to reduce impact on time / cost / quality.
• To apply standard project management practices and methodology as practicable in a way which corresponds but supports the nature of the publishing environment, allowing for agile and waterfall approaches.
• Overall ownership of the Communication Plan including providing regular reporting to team, board level and Operational Dashboard updates. Ensure that updates are aligned and shared with programme teams and Sponsors. Also includes planning of company-wide comms to ensure that other indirect stakeholders are informed.
• To think creatively and to be adaptive in finding solutions whilst proactively engaging with stakeholders, Programme team and suppliers to ensure any miscommunications, risks and issues are addressed and mitigated against as early as possible.
• To coordinate closely with all areas and departments involved as appropriate, to ensure a coordinated approach and ongoing communication lines, particularly around matrix management and availability of programme resources.
• To support the Publishing community to identify potential future publishing using the new platform, and onboarding them to the Programme in a structured way based on Lessons learned from previous title publishing.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications

Experience:

• Seasoned professional with experience of business change, transformation, digital technology programmes or business side scope of product launch.
• Demonstrable experience of successful programme delivery, particularly with Agile/Waterfall hybrid projects
• Experience of working in a fluid environment
• Experience of working as part of a Global, multi-site team
• Experience of working within a structured publishing environment

Skills/Knowledge:

• Understanding and experience of applying project management disciplines and knowledge of the publishing and software development life cycles
• Understanding and experience of comprehensive risk & issue management within complex projects
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to motivate and steer programme team activity to achieve objectives
• Excellent communication skills and stakeholder management across different organisational levels
• Confident and pro-active approach with the ability to self-manage and take on initiatives to pre-empt and resolve issues
• Flexible approach and the ability to adapt to fast-paced, changing environments
• Team player
• Strong organisational skills with an eye for detail and accuracy
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills

Qualifications     

• Educated to degree level
• Prince 2 Practitioner and/or Agile qualifications

Need to be Capable of:

Technical Capability

 Uses technical / job knowledge and experience to meet and exceed job requirements / customer expectations.  Efficiently manages workload and projects within set timelines and to agreed budget, achieving set objectives. 

Customer Focus (internal and external customers)

Nurtures relationships by recognising and delivering on internal and external customer’s needs and opinions.  Helps others to understand the implications of their decisions. Develops and sustains productive internal and external customer relationships.

Relationship Building/ Teamwork (incorporating Communication, Influencing and Trust)

Builds effective relationships through positive communication that motivates and influences others.  Honest and trustworthy; a valued team member, actively involved in achieving team objectives.  Works cooperatively and flexibly with other members of the team.

Managing Complexity (incorporating change management and flexibility)

Is able to work effectively in a highly complex, diverse, changing environment.  Maintains a high level of performance under conditions of increased pressure, competition and adversity. Proactively pursues opportunities to drive change that add value to the business. #LI-CO1

Problem Solving

Takes initiative to identify current and potential problems and determines the best solution. Identifies the cause of problems and key issues through investigation; identifies effective, logical and practical solutions.