Regional Program Manager - Datacenter Strategy

The Regional Program Manager, Datacenter Strategy will provide leadership and direction in establishing a DC Ops strategy that will support our current and future growth. In this role you will work collaboratively with all CO+I stakeholders to support the strategic vision for the organization and a governance methodology from conception to completion driving excellence in service through industry best practices.

As a successful Regional Program Manager, Datacenter Strategy your day-to-day work will include:

Business Program Planning and Design

• Performs program landscape research and analysis (e.g., internal and/or external market, sales, delivery), forecasting, and examines business (e.g., customer feedback and expectations) trends to identify audience size and program scope, stay current, agile, and competitive, and contribute to programs impacting Microsoft. Solves complex problems and synthesizes across organizational boundaries. Drives consensus to prioritize key business goals, objectives, and strategies, and develop short- and long-term business priorities. Understands and identifies current program risks, impact, and develops mitigation plans impacting Microsoft.
• Identifies and scopes opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones impacting Microsoft. Drives the identification and resolution of root problems (e.g., root-cause analysis), the definition of the program strategy, gathers program requirements, identifies resource needs, creates the project plan and targets, and works across teams to align on the plan of record. Improves operations of existing programs by applying industry methodology, defining crucial complex program issues, assessing various scenarios, and selecting the optimal scenario to resolve issues. Drives clarity in highly crucial program issues and strives for simplification.
• Drives strategic alignment among cross-functional (e.g., organizational, product, business) stakeholders (e.g., Engineering) to design crucial programs from initiation to delivery. Provides thought leadership to produce collateral (e.g., proposals, strategy walking deck, internal and external pitch content) to incorporate stakeholder needs and ensure the business objectives are met.
• Acts as a subject matter expert to drive the defining and tracking of success criteria and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs] and Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]), such as quality, adoption, usage, impact, and effectiveness for the program.

Business Program Excellence and Execution

• Sets best practices to define and executes on a landing and communication plan, such as the target audience(s) and communication strategy. Drives the rhythm of business (ROB) during plan execution to ensure participants and stakeholders are communicating and responding according to the necessary cadence. Drives others to work across teams (e.g., Landing, Design, Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, Technical Program Management) to ensure all program requirements are understood and can be met.
• Acts as a subject matter expert to evangelize crucial programs to stakeholders, partners, and customers to gain buy in. Leverages data and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs] and Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]) to demonstrate the value of the program and show business impact. Drives others to adapt communication style and storytelling strategy according to audience and business needs.

Business Program Management

• Oversees a portfolio of projects including the project plan, timelines, milestones, financial management, performance metrics, and/or resource needs for crucial programs. Communicates the program status and risk to relevant stakeholders and holds them accountable for following the established schedule, risk mitigation plans, and processes. Establishes objectives and success criteria for the project in an inclusive collaborative manner with all stakeholders.
• Acts as subject matter expert to drive others to understand mapping or how systems work and impact one another. Drives the collaboration and leverages other teams (e.g., Supply Chain, Engineering, Sales) to ensure program processes are rigorous and executed efficiently. Develops processes around scope and scheduled changes for programs impacting Microsoft and communicates it to stakeholders. Recognizes process gaps/inefficiencies and drives strategies for optimization.

Business Program Evaluation and Improvement

• Provides deep expertise to conduct cost-benefit analyses to examine performance to value drivers (e.g., profit and loss [P&L], return on investment [ROI]). Leverages monthly business review revenue (MBR) to drive strategic and overall performance decisions with stakeholders and runs rhythms regularly to identify what is working and what is not and makes improvements accordingly.
• Provides subject matter expertise to collect and evaluates success criteria and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs] and Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]), such as acquisition, usage, impact, effectiveness, and customer feedback to use scorecards and dashboards to monitor programs and ensure all activities align with business and program objectives, and to report up to leadership and create leadership visibility. Optimizes the use of data analytics (e.g., scenario analyses) to derive insights and training that help identify current and future program risks and mitigation plans, as well as opportunities to streamline and optimize programs based on lessons learned that impact Microsoft.
• Utilizes direction and strategy from leadership to advocate and influence sponsorship regarding business area of expertise to create and execute plans that shift current priorities to new organizational initiatives and objectives, and influences others to change behavior accordingly. Drives the definition of the vision and strategy for change, broad and specific impact, and the flow of communication to the organization. Ensures buy in and adoption of the new program or change by others in the organization. Drives others to develop the collateral required to enable key stakeholders and others to be onboard. Drives the training, reskilling, and mapping of individuals in partnership with Human Resources (HR).

Service Delivery

• Creating and managing end-to-end project plans and ensuring on-time delivery.
• Support a strategic vision and implementation plan for regional data center operations that will position the organization for future capacity and growth.
• Collaborate with our EG partners to drive consistency across our service portfolio.
• Work with all field operations horizonal and vertical leaders to streamline our operations to ensure flawless service delivery to our customers.
• Support the development of a workforce optimization program that will improve our service delivery capabilities.
• Establish data analytics to evaluate the process change efficiency and effectiveness.
• Drive service delivery excellence through benchmarking across industry best practices
• Foster an understanding of the various stakeholders, their interests and needs to ensure the teams can sustain and embrace the changes through clear communications, engagement, and appropriate governance throughout the implementation of the various operational excellence programs.

Data Center Work Environment

• Seeks training opportunities that meet the interest of the business as well as own career goals and objectives.
• Suggests ways for reducing risk of performing maintenance; works with others to accommodate scheduling needs.
• Suggests improvements in implementation based on depth of understanding.
• Contributes constructively during team meetings and in cross-disciplinary collaborations within the service team.

Ownership

• In alignment with management priorities, holds self-accountable for the end-to-end service quality, completeness, and resulting customer experience (including but not limited to availability, safety, security, customer service).
• Supports escalation of issues to appropriate owner.

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Operations, Finance or related field AND 8+ years work experience in program management, process management, process improvement
• OR equivalent experience.
• 10+ years’ program management experience within mission-critical service management (e.g., providing IT services, manufacturing, warehouse, retail, military, or managing physical operations in an IT and/or critical environment infrastructure).
• Proven experience in creating road maps for large projects to gain efficiencies and in delivering to road map capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience or good understanding of multi-state, multi-country, or federal-level labor laws and employment conditions & requirements
• Awareness of IT Service Operations fundamentals and principles. (ITIL, MOF, OLA/SLA, CSI, etc.)
• Previous experience with MS Cloud Services and Platforms (e.g., Windows Azure, Office 365, Excel Pivot tables, etc.)
• Project or program management experience and certification(s) (e.g., Six Sigma, Kaizen, PMI, etc.)
• 3-5 years' Experience with reporting and data analysis systems & platforms (e.g., PowerBI)
• Practical knowledge of ITIL concepts and terminology – with focus on Change, Incident, Problem, and Service Delivery Management functions

Background Check Requirements:

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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