The IT Project Management Senior Advisor is a results-driven individual with proven success in optimizing project and program management by delivering solutions within the agreed scope, budget, schedule and quality leveraging agile methodologies.

The focus of this role is to lead the successful delivery of the Cigna Supplemental Benefits initiatives. This domain requires leadership and coordination across the Solution to align and deliver on its multi-year roadmap.

This role requires leadership, together with customer focus, driving engagement, conflict management, adaptability, strong negotiation and effective communication to bring the right focus while effectively optimizing delivery based on business priorities.

Success in this role requires collaboration and partnership with Epic owners, Strategic Priority Owners, Experience Group Owners, IT Leadership, Engineering Leads, Enterprise Architecture and Release Train Engineers.

Leadership

• Overall management, tracking and reporting of technology deliverables in support of new business capabilities, ensuring on time and on budget delivery per commitments, adherence to compliance and quality standards, and alignment to the objectives and key results of the business case
• Lead the definition, implementation, and execution of the Agile operating model for an Experience group
• Effectively leverage subject matter experts, senior leadership, key stakeholders, and other resources as necessary to accomplish business objectives; influence leaders and executives
• Set the direction and tone of the team
• Understand and apply best practices and other optimization approaches to evolve the operating model
• Establish and maintain a “big picture” view in support of the experience group owner
• Act as a change agent to drive acceptance and adoption of Experience Led Agile using a structured approach
• Facilitate pre and post PI-planning with internal teams and strategic partners using SAFe Agile methods, including dependency management, impediment removal, PI Planning Readiness, and Program Increment Commitment alignment.

Program Management

• Establish and manage the budget within experience group including influencing new budget practices and how we utilize and optimize them within the experience group
• Manage and optimize the processes and tools by which experience group’s business value is delivered
• Effectively integrate with other Stakeholder Experiences, Platform teams, Shared Services, etc. to accomplish business objectives
• Manage interdependencies within the experience group trains, and outside of experience group including platform and shared services,
• Define, manage, and mitigate risk for the experience group
• Facilitates Pre and Post Program Increment (PI) Planning to coordinate and integrate the outcomes of PI planning across ARTs, and across affected platform teams and shared services
• Aggregates program PI objectives into an experience group overall aligned set of objectives/view

Lean Portfolio Management

• Define, document, and manage a multi-PI roadmap for the experience group owner
• Leading the intake of work into the experience group backlog, organizing, and managing efforts to review, analyze, and solution the backlog
• Facilitate decision making regarding priorities, trade-offs, including proposing ‘what if’ scenarios for decision by experience group owner when competing priorities exist
• Effectively communicate both up and down the organization, role expectations, and other key items impacting the team
• Drives continuous improvement via Inspect and Adapt (I&A) for the Experience group
• Reports status and supports activities related to Lean Portfolio Management as aligned to Portfolio Operations & Governance.
• Implement tracking methods and metrics to monitor progress, report status, identify deviations and implement (Inclusive of delivery predictability and flow metrics)
• Execute change control processes to identify impacts (scope, schedule, cost, business case benefits), complete an impact assessment, and present recommendation

Required

• 7-10 years in Project/Program Management within a large matrixed organization
• 3-5 years’ experience as release train engineer, or Agile Project/Program Manager, or Agile product manager
• Proven track record of delivering on large scale or multiple initiatives. Experience with all aspects of the delivery, including planning, capacity reviews, budget, features/user stories, design and delivery execution
• Proven ability to effectively communicate with internal and external stakeholders to identify needs and evaluate alternative solutions and strategies;
• Servant leader and strong communicator with strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to communicate at all levels of the organization, including VP levels
• Ability to take complicated subjects and distill them down to salient points to drive decision making
• Experience applying Lean Thinking and Systems Thinking in large organizations
• Experience with Lean Portfolio Management facilitation for program, portfolio, or executive-level
• Strong technical aptitude and experience leading teams in delivering quality software experience working in an Agile organization using Scrum, XP, Kanban, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), or other scaling model
• Experience building complex Project and Program artifacts including Project charters, comprehensive project plans, milestone views, status reports, issues, risk and contingency plans, etc
• Proven extensive experience within IT SDLC – including but not limited to:
• Scope management
• Quality Management
• Financial / Budget Management
• Implementation Activities
• Lifecycle components such as business analysis, design, testing, release management
• Strong detailed analytical skills
• Ability to stay very organized while managing multiple tasks and activities
• Takes initiative and is a self-starter
• Dealing with ambiguity and problem solving
• Advanced Presentation/Facilitation skills required
• Adapt communication style for the audience and topics
• Negotiation and tactful influencing skills at all levels required
• Exemplary Written and Verbal Communications
• Serve as a change agent for the organization
• Waterfall and Agile Experience required
• Proficient in MS Office tools
• Bachelor degree in relevant field Required

Preferred

• Masters degree
• Experience with tools such as Clarity PPM, Jira, etc. preferred
• PMP Certified
• Scaled Agile certification(s) / Release Train Engineer Certification
• Healthcare experience