Program Manager Delivery

Join Cognizant as an inspiring leader within the Digital Program Management Guild. This key role is accountable for delivering Digital Consulting solutions and business benefits throughout our clients’ digital transformation journey. We are looking for candidates who have strong consulting experience running digital client delivery programs, while simultaneously being responsible for program timelines, scope, margin, and engaging in the sales process. We would love to talk with you about leading strategic programs with multiple digital service line projects across Cognizant!

Responsibilities

Drive consensus between various client and Cognizant leaders to facilitate the conversion of program's Vision and Goals in to a Program Charter.

Identify partners and establish effective governance with the CXO(s) and senior program leadership. Act as the single point of contact for the program's client CXO suite to keep positive relationships

Facilitate cross-project collaboration. Drive program level planning efforts, identifying and leading critical program level dependencies

Validate lifecycle methodology of various projects and ensure alignment and aggregation of key data will be possible to enable tracking and reporting

Provide thought leadership within the Digital Program Management Guild

Analyze and relentlessly focus on value delivery and encourage improved business outcomes to achieve program goals and metrics

Bring together multiple solution components across our internal practices and service lines

Understand, initiate and or facilitate scope / changes to SOW, supporting the individual Project/Program Manager(s) as required

Interact with Client and Internal Cognizant partners to resolve critical issues and communicate potential 'significant change', as identified

Ensure a strong understanding of the Client’s needs; use opportunities to understand and provide inputs / direction on their IT / Business roadmap to provide focus and visibility in to the CXO charters

Share consultative feedback with the Client Partner/ Engagement Director in terms of client's focus areas

Proactively engage to build an eco-system of partners and generate awareness about shared risks, accountability and rewards

Professional Qualifications And Skills

Digital services consulting firm or digital agency experience

15 plus years in strategy, operations, process consulting, stakeholder management, project / program delivery within digital transformations

MBA or Master’s degree strongly preferred; Bachelor degree required

Project / Program training and certifications (PMI / SAFe 5.0 / Prince II)

Broad program management experience - ability to navigate Heritage, Hybrid and Agile methodologies

Knowledge of digital ecosystem and digital skills for one or more industries

Significant experience leading sophisticated transformations or programs that span functions, departments, and enterprise

Trusted team leader who delivers results - delivering defined business value to our Client

Professional Attributes of the Program Director

Effective Communication and Partner Management - emotional intelligence, empathy and strong social, communications, and engaging presentation skills

Structured Thinking and Presentation - comfort dealing with ambiguity and ability to provide structure and frame thinking logically and effectively.

Proven leadership of teams and business priorities through building relationships, listening, consulting and influencing outcomes in both client delivery and in sales

Articulate sophisticated information and business insights into meaningful action items and problem-solving decisions for senior leaders

Consultative, entrepreneurial, proactive, and productive; someone who instinctively knows what needs to be done and motivates colleagues towards accomplishments.

Location: United States; Remote

You must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Handle a large team, members from various nationalities and regions seamlessly

How do you deal with team members from different cultures?

Here are some tips to foster cross-cultural working relationships:

1.Get to Know Each Team Member. ...

2.Adopt Flexibility. ...

3.Promote Open Communication. ...

4.Encourage Team Building Activities. ...

5.Listen Actively. ...

6.Create a Structure for Success. ...

7.Address Conflict Immediately. ...

8.Create a Cross-Cultural Awareness Program.

To establish relationships across the CIO organization, business areas and suppliers in order to deliver successful engagement experience to customer

What is meant by customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) is everything related to a business that affects a customer’s perception and feelings about it.

What makes up the customer experience?

Nowadays customers have more ways to interact with businesses and experience them than ever before. This includes:

Traditional brick-and-mortar stores visits

Mobile apps

Social media

Web/SMS chat

Support forums

Creative endeavors from marketing

Even devices connected to the Internet of Things

In tackling the complexity of the customer experience, from interaction to interaction, and arriving at a definition of what the customer experience is, it can be helpful to break it down into its basic components.

Culture, strategy, and processes

When the International Data Corporation surveyed customer service organizations about who led efforts to deliver superior customer experiences, over 72 percent of respondents replied that the strategy was led by either the CEO or other senior executives.

In other words, the people at the top need to use their influence and power to ensure that their companies focus on providing a consistent customer experience throughout their marketing, sales cycle, and especially in their customer service.

Leadership must set the tone and drive its customer experience values throughout the organization, being willing to break down silos and develop strategies and processes, customer experience and beyond, that realize the company’s goals.

Setting priorities within the company and balancing customer experience with other departmental resourcing needs also falls on leadership. “CX strategy and values that are not backed with resources won't get very far,” said Dyson.

Products and services

These must meet customer needs, demands, and expectations; the companies with the best customer experience strategies use their knowledge and culture to anticipate customer experience needs before customers ask for help. An experience may not always be tangible but the elements that create it are.

“A product that meets customer needs and expectations will require less post-sale support than one that does not,” said Dyson.

People

Customer service agents, partners, suppliers—all play essential roles in delivering a consistent customer experience. That means understanding the company’s strategy and having the training and morale to define and implement an impactful customer experience successfully.

It also means creating a great employee experience to make it easy for employees to meet customers’ needs and expectations.

“Training, tools, policies, processes, and culture all need to serve people—the customers and employees who serve them—not the other way around,” said Dyson. “How you measure success, whether you encourage employees to collaborate or compete, what opportunities you provide for them to grow, how empowered they are to make decisions to help the customer—all these things can affect the employee experience, which ultimately affects the customer experience.”

Information

This can be business-to-customer, employee-to-employee, and from partners-to-customers—content, data, and analysis.

Knowledge management resources, both external and internal, play an important role in improving organizational efficiency and providing customers with self-service options. If customers can respond to your marketing collateral, be aware that's included as well.

Customer touchpoints and channels

This includes all the touchpoints and channels through which a customer experiences an organization—phone, email, text, chat, ads, your website, or even a third-party review site, like Yelp.

Technology

By definition, the modern customer experience environment relies on technology to drive service, such as customer service software.

Q:

As a program director, would you rather disappoint your most loyal customer or the head of your department?

A:

The program director will likely be working to manage many different workflows and projects. Depending on your organization's main objectives, you probably value one type of view over the other. What to look for in an answer:

Ability to prioritize

Clear logic used to support their choice

Strong communication skills

Example:

"I wouldn't want to let either party down, but I would rather disappoint the head of my department because sales drive the bulk of our growth, and customer loyalty is key. In the end, I think the department head would agree with my choice."

Q:

Do you tend to plan ahead and hedge against possible issues, or do you prefer to tackle problems as they arise?

A:

A program director juggles several responsibilities and works to enhance an organization's traction with its target audiences. There will always be the possibility for unexpected circumstances to arise, and your candidate should have a methodology in place for dealing with these situations.

Gives a direct answer to the question

Explains their preference for one approach

Exhibits strong logical reasoning skills

Example:

"I prefer to hedge against possible problems. Since the organizations that I worked at were all mature companies, dealing with mistakes on the fly would be more damaging to the brand. However, I can act on problems quickly when needed."

Q:

Tell me about a project you led that failed to achieve expected results. How do you ensure those mistakes aren't repeated?

A:

Even though you're hiring a program director with the goal of growing your firm's offerings and business, not all ventures will end up with positive results. A candidate should use their past experiences as learning opportunities to help support their work on future projects. The applicant's answer to this question will allow you to gain an understanding of how they deal with failures and unexpected circumstances. What to look for in an answer:

Cites examples of past failures

Explains outcomes and what was learned from past experiences

Stays professional under stress

Example:

"Last year, I helped my employer launch a new online learning platform that failed to gain subscribers. We realized that the marketplace was already congested before we made an entrance. To mitigate these risks in the future, I'll make sure to conduct thorough market research before selling anything."

Q:

When you're presented with two strong project ideas, how do you decide which one to prioritize for your organization?

A:

Often, a program director will need to decide between two interesting projects that can bring different benefits to your organization. A candidate should be able to correctly identify which one will be most suitable for achieving your company's goals. A potential hire's response to this question allows you to gauge their logical reasoning skills and business acumen. What to look for in an answer:

Demonstrates a clear process for weighing two projects against each other

Exhibits strong logical reasoning abilities

Understanding of communication skills

Example:

"When I'm deciding between two projects, I first prioritize the one that will generate more long-term profitability for the company. With strong cash flow, we'd be able to also take on the other project in due time."

Q:

When you're running several projects at the same time, how do you track which ones have healthy metrics and which ones are at risk?

A:

A program director is in charge of monitoring teams and tasks that are central to an organization's continued success. Depending on the scope of your business, the potential hire may need to juggle many responsibilities while also looking for growth opportunities. As such, it's important that a candidate is able to weed out the projects that are time-consuming with low reward in favor of better ones. What to look for in an answer:

Clear understanding of business fundamentals

Can outline a strategy for effective time management

Ability to evaluate success metrics

Example:

"To track the performance of my portfolio of programs, I have my financial and business analysts report to me on a monthly basis. I review their data to determine which projects are showing positive cash flows and profits, which are the metrics that I use to define success."

· Drive the steering committee reviews to ensure program governance objectives

What should a steering committee do?

The Steering Committee's role is to provide advice, ensure delivery of the project outputs and the achievement of project outcomes. ... Providing advice (and sometimes making decisions) about changes to the project as it develops. The Steering Committee provides support, guidance and oversight of progress.

Guiding Principles for Agile Program Governance

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