Principal Project Manager

Company: American Water
Location: Camden
Posted on: May 14, 2022

Job Description:

Diversity of backgrounds, ideas, thoughts, and experiences is vital to our culture and the way we do business. Creating an environment where differences are embraced and where every person feels engaged and included makes us safer, stronger, and more successful.

With a history dating back to 1886, American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 6,400 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and regulated-like drinking water and wastewater services to an estimated 14 million people in 25 states. American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to help keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com and follow American Water on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

PLEASE NOTE: In order for American Water to evaluate decisions about new regulations, reintegration, and safe operating practices, all employees are required to report their vaccination status.
Primary Role
The Principal Project Manager will be responsible for the overall project management, coordination, implementation, execution, control and closure of the technology initiatives from business requirements, through executive approval, program execution, delivery, and project goals in conformance with the IT Technology Delivery and PMO guidelines. This position is considered a key member of the IT PMO team. Based on the initiative assigned, Project/Product Manager will leverage appropriate delivery framework to provide business value with focus on speed to deliver.
Key Accountabilities

Lead planning and or implementation of assigned projects

Facilitate the definition of project mission, goals, tasks and resource requirements

Ensures business value realization and optimization, from value plans through consultancy, business case development, financial awareness, managing expectations, and identifying technology opportunities to add value

Analyze executive vision, market trends, competitive products, potential partners, user needs and ongoing maintenance requirements in selecting appropriate technical solution options for product development/project delivery and management.

Translate business strategy into detailed product requirements, systems architecture, proposed implementation options, costs and schedules for final product development/project plan reviews, approvals and execution

Use disciplined project management methodology to define scope, develop project plan, and execute projects that adhere to guidelines and deliver within cost and schedule

Delivering all projects on time, within budget and meeting the desired outcomes and business requirements

Tracking project milestones, anticipating risks & issues, proactive risk mitigation and making recommendations to business and IT leadership to achieve successful outcomes

Resolve or assist in the resolution of conflicts within or between projects or functional areas

Develop methods to monitor project or area progress and provide corrective supervision if necessary

Responsible for assembling the project staff; for their technical or functional performance during the projects

Manage project budget and resource allocation

Strong cross-business unit / functional IT communication, influencing and negotiation to drive project results

Develop and maintain detailed project plan and charter

Effectively manage selected vendors, review their billings and ensure integrity of their deliverables

Facilitate the definition of acceptability criteria with the project customer users of the solution

Guide and oversee all members of the project team in the planning of their tasks

Work cross-functionally to solve problems and implement changes

Follow defined agreed upon project management methodology's and agreed upon PMO processes

Communicate project progress by producing project reports to provide timely and accurate project status and decision support information to project team, department and management, Steering Committee and PMO

Ensuring project closure including completion of lessons learned and required documentation

Partners with the Change Management and Communication resources to enable successful rollout and adoption of IT changes

Understands the available IT tools with respect to business value, complexity, functions, and standards

Knowledge/Skills

• Expert knowledge and application of various software development life cycles and techniques (e.g., waterfall and agile)
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and proven ability to work effectively with all organizational levels
• Attention to detail and strong organizational skills in order to manage multiple phases of a project plan
• Customer-oriented approach in managing communications and issues
• Ability to operate effectively in a matrixed organizational structure
• Ability to listen, and build rapport and credibility as a strategic partner vertically within the business unit, as well as with leadership and functional teams
• Ability to map joint organizational vision and long-term thinking, imagination, and idea generation
• Ability to effectively drive business, culture, and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment
• Strong leadership, business, technical, analytical, problem solving and verbal and written communication skills
• Highly organized and able to manage time effectively
• Aptitude for mining and analyzing data for metrics and decision support
• Excellent listening skills in order to successfully interpret business needs
• Ability to balance what is "right" with what is "realistic"
• Ability to stay focused on identified priorities
• Ability to make decisions in situations of ambiguity and the absence of complete facts
• Ability to work and team with a multitude of different people and to balance demandsHR/Legal/Comm
  
  
  • Lead the planning and implementation of assigned Legal, Communication & HR projects - including defining scope, creation of detailed project plan specifying goals, stakeholders, scheduled activities and determining resources.
  • Well-demonstrated ability to quickly understand enterprise Legal, Communication and HR business organization objectives
  • Experience in managing projects related with complex HR and/or payroll systems along with implementation experience of solutions such as listed below is a pluso SAP HCM/ SuccessFactors/ Workday implementation
    
    o People Analytics
    
    o Custom analytics product development
    
    o Document management solutions
    
    o Emerging technology solutions (AI/ML based text search, chat bots, metadata structuring etc.)
    
    
    • Strong experience in successfully managing a variety of significant cross-functional projects in parallelKnowledge/Skills Continued
      
      Customer
      
      
      • Lead the planning and implementation of assigned Customer function projects - including defining scope, creation of detailed project plan specifying goals, stakeholders, scheduled activities and determining resources.
      • Well-demonstrated ability to quickly understand company's digital transformation of customer experience and customer relationship management objectives
      • Experience in managing projects related with complex utility (ISU) customer experience and CRM systems along with implementation experience of solutions such as listed below is a pluso Custom product development (analytics, web, mobile apps etc.)
        
        o Customer experience solution implementation
        
        o Customer communication generation & management tools implementation
        
        
        • Strong experience in successfully managing a variety of significantcross-functional projects in parallel
          
          Ops/Safety/Environment
          
          
          • Lead the planning and implementation of assigned operations, Safety & Environment function projects - including defining scope, creation of detailed project plan specifying goals, stakeholders, scheduled activities and determining resources.
          • Well-demonstrated ability to quickly understand company's digital transformation of operations, Safety & Environment functions' objectives
          • Experience in managing projects related with complex utility (ISU) operations, Safety & Environment solutions along with implementation experience of solutions such as listed below is a pluso MDMS solution
            
            o Work management solutions
            
            o Outage management solution
            
            o Integrated (proactive) communication
            
            o Notification generation & management
            
            o Analytics product development
            
            Finance/Rates/Regulatory
            
            
            • Lead the planning and implementation of assigned Finance/Supply Chain/Rates/Regulatory function projects - including defining scope, creation of detailed project plan specifying goals, stakeholders, scheduled activities and determining resources.
            • Well-demonstrated ability to quickly understand company's digital transformation of Finance/Supply Chain/Rates/Regulatory functions' objectives
            • Experience in managing projects related with complex utility Finance/Supply Chain/Rates/Regulatory solutions along with implementation experience of solutions such as listed below is a pluso S/4HANA implementation
              
              o Realtime analytics
              
              o Model driven analysis
              
              o Process automation
              
              Cloud Platform:
              
              • Senior Project Manager / Delivery Manager with extensive cloud migration experience
              • 5+ years cloud related experience (real experience in Data migration in cloud, or lift & shift migration)
              • Led Cloud Migration project or Cloud Transformation Project.
              • Experience with DevOps & Agile delivery, CI/CD pipeline, packaging & deployment
              • Can articulate/describe cloud architecture
              • Proactive risk mitigation and driving the project comprehensivelyExperience/Education
                Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent relevant work experience
                PMP/PMI-ACP/Scrum Master/Agile Mythology certified preferred
                Over 12 years' experience in project management/product development, business systems analysis, software development or deployment, with a minimum of 8 years' experience managing projects and/or product development
                Implementation experience in leading technology solutions for the relevant business processes (ERP, ISU, MDMS, customer experience solutions etc.) Solutions,
                Experienced in working in rapidly changing and ambiguous work environment
                Experience with Scrumban, XP, Kanban, Lean, and other Agile frameworks
                Familiarity with Smartsheet, Trello, Jira, MS Suite and similar project management toolsets to manage project tracking, key performance indicators, project budget, resources, and timelines.
                Effective communication and ability to convey complex process concepts to IT and business organizations in a manner that is easy to understand
                
                Certifications/Licenses
                
                PMP/PMI-ACP/Scrum Master/Agile Mythology certified preferred
                
                Competencies Champions safety Collaborates Cultivates innovation Customer obsessed Drives Results Nimble learning
                
                Join American Water... We Keep Life Flowing ---
                
                American Water is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and prohibits employment discrimination for employees and applicants based on his or her age, race, color, pregnancy, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, citizenship, or because they are an individual with a disability, protected veteran or other status protected by federal, state, and local laws.

Keywords: American Water, Camden , Principal Project Manager, Executive , Camden, New Jersey