What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Project Manager position at American Water?
Requisition ID: 108974
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About American Water
American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States. With a history dating back to 1886, We Keep Life Flowing® by providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people across 14 regulated jurisdictions and 18 military installations. American Water’s 6,500 talented professionals leverage their significant expertise and the company’s national size and scale to achieve excellent outcomes for the benefit of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.
American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States. With a history dating back to 1886, We Keep Life Flowing® by providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people across 14 regulated jurisdictions and 18 military installations. American Water’s 6,500 talented professionals leverage their significant expertise and the company’s national size and scale to achieve excellent outcomes for the benefit of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.
As one of the fastest growing utilities in the U.S., American Water expects to invest $40 to $42 billion in infrastructure repairs and replacement, system resiliency and regulated acquisitions over the next 10 years. The company has a long-standing history of executing its core operations, aligned with sustainable best practices, through its commitments to safety, affordability, customer service, protecting the environment, an inclusive workforce and strengthening communities.
American Water has been recognized on the 2023 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the fifth consecutive year, ranked 18th on Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable U.S. Companies 2023 List, earned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security SAFETY Act designation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense® Excellence Award, among additional state, local and national recognitions.
For more information, visit amwater.com and join American Water on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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
Key Accountabilities Cont'd
- 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
- Product Manager
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 demands
Knowledge
- 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 plus
- SAP HCM/ SuccessFactors/ Workday implementation
- People Analytics o Custom analytics product development
- 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 parallel
- 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 plus
- Custom product development (analytics, web, mobile apps etc.)
- Customer experience solution implementation
- Customer communication generation & management tools implementation.
- Strong experience in successfully managing a variety of significant cross-functional projects in parallel.
Experience/Education
- 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
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent relevant work experience
- PMP/PMI-ACP/Scrum Master/Agile Mythology certified preferred
Certifications/Licenses
- PMP/PMI-ACP/Scrum Master/Agile Mythology certified preferred
Competencies
Champions safety
Customer obsessed
Cultivates innovation
Nimble learning
Drives Results
Collaborates
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.
