Overview

Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

This role is a part of the Learning & Organization Capability (LOC) organization and specifically a part of the Business Management & Operations (BMO) team, where we are empowering all employees to do their best work by activating learning and developing leaders and employees in all parts of the organization. If this sounds exciting to you and you are experienced in Business Management & Operations, Demand Planning, and Business Program Management we have an exciting opportunity for you on the BMO team. We are seeking experienced professionals with an important combination of skills and experience to support the LOC mission. This Business Program Manager, plays a key role in directly supporting driving towards the organization's strategic objectives through:

• Business Management & Operations: Drive various business management processes such as annual planning, budget management, forecasting, & headcount management. Provide expertise in business operations e.g., managing key Rhythm of Business (ROB) activities including running recurring events such as org-level all-togethers/summits, portfolio reviews, and providing readiness material to support the ROB.
• Demand Planning: Report-out on and align with key stakeholders on factors that influence learning consumption to improve forecasting accuracy. Understand org and leadership team level strategic objectives to provide recommendations on achieving optimal demand targets across the learning portfolio. Collaborate with key leaders to influence demand outcomes.
• Program Management: Drive adherence to program/project management best practices. End to end ownership of special projects/programs to support the various business management & operations processes. This can include day-to-day business operations and org-wide events such as org-wide all-togethers, learning summits, and more.

Responsibilities

Business Program Planning and Design

• Performs program landscape research and analysis (e.g., internal and/or external market, sales, delivery), forecasting, and examines business trends (e.g., customer feedback and expectations) to identify audience size and program scope, and stay current, agile, and competitive. Understands overall business goals, objectives, and strategies, as well as short- and long-term business priorities. Understands and identifies current program risks, impact, and mitigation plans.
• Identifies and scopes opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones. Identifies and provides solutions to root problems (e.g., root-cause analysis), defines 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 complex program issues, assessing various scenarios, and selecting the optimal scenario to resolve issues. Drives clarity in complex program issues and strives for simplification.
• Works with cross-functional (e.g., organizational, product, business) stakeholders (e.g., Engineering) to design compliant, complex programs from initiation to delivery with minimal coaching. Produces collateral (e.g., proposals, strategy walking deck, internal and external pitch content) to incorporate stakeholder needs and ensure the business objectives are met.
• Defines and tracks the success criteria and performance metrics (e.g., Objectives and Key Results [OKRs] and Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]), such as quality, adoption, usage, impact, effectiveness) for the program.

Buisness Program Excellence and Execution

• Defines and executes on landing and communication plans, such as the target audience(s) and communication strategy. Leads the rhythm of business (ROB) during plan execution to ensure participants and stakeholders are communicating and responding according to the necessary cadence. Works across teams (e.g., Landing Design, Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, Technical Program Management) to ensure all program requirements are understood and can be met.
• Evangelizes complex 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. Adapts communication style and storytelling strategy according to audience and business needs.

Business Program Management

• Contributes to or leads a portfolio of projects including the project plan, timelines, milestones, financial management, performance metrics, and/or resource needs for complex programs. Communicates the program status and risk to relevant stakeholders and holds them accountable for following the established schedule, risk mitigation plans, and processes.
• Demonstrates an understanding of mapping or how systems work and impact one another. Works with 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, and communicates them to stakeholders.

Business Program Evaluation and Improvement

• Conducts cost-benefit analyses to examine performance to value drivers (e.g., profit and loss [P&L], return on investment [ROI]). Contributes to monthly business review (MBR) and runs rhythms regularly to identify what is working and what is not, and makes improvements accordingly.
• Collects 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, and uses scorecards and dashboards to monitor complex programs and ensure all activities align with business and program objectives. Uses 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.
• Utilizes direction and strategy from leadership regarding business area of expertise in order to help create and execute plans that shift current priorities to new organizational initiatives and objectives, and influences others to change behavior accordingly. Defines 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. Develops the collateral required to enable key stakeholders and others to be on board. Contributes to the training, reskilling, and mapping of individuals in partnership with Human Resources (HR).

Other key responsibilities:

• Contributing to the continuous improvement of various business management and operational processes that support the overall portfolio to drive an integrated ecosystem of processes that leverage best practices around ROB, data management, reporting, change management, etc. Advanced Excel skills required: Converting raw data pulls into usable reports, PivotTables, formulas, charts, and graphs (data visualization). Merging data from various sources to support data-driven decision making.
• Presenting ideas/proposals to executive leaders on overall plans and gaining buy-in from key stakeholders.
• Supports day-to-day operations and planning.

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Operations, Finance or related field AND 4+ years work experience in program management, process management, process improvement
  • OR equivalent experience.

Preferred qualifications

• 2+ years of direct experience with managing demand plans for a portfolio of products/services.
• Experience with Human Resources ecosystem
• Experience w/ OKRs
• Intermediate understanding of PowerBI and/or other business analytics/gathering data insights

Business Program Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $91,800 - $178,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $117,900 - $195,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until April 30, 2024.

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.