Associate director planning

Team Name:
Battle.net & Online Products

Job Title:
Associate Director, Platform Planning

Requisition ID:
R024212

Job Description:

The Battle.net & Online Products (B&OP) organization is home to 300+ engineers, product managers, and designers focused on the technology that powers Blizzard Entertainment’s games. Whether you’re playing one of our titles, chatting with friends, or just shopping online, B&OP ensures that our players are immersed in engaging, exciting, and secure experiences. B&OP is responsible for several platform products that are shared among all of Blizzard’s games.

We are looking for an Associate Director of Platform Planning to lead the B&OP PMO. In this role, you will lead and execute planning processes and support initiatives for the Battle.net organization, and will build partnerships with key stakeholders (engineers, product managers, etc.) to plan, execute, deliver, and report consolidated results to Senior Leadership. Our PMO utilizes a “controlling PMO” model, where projects are driven centrally through compliance to practices, templates and frameworks, but where most of the PMs do not report directly into the organization. Soft skills that support influence without authority are a must.

You will act as a champion for continuous improvement while architecting processes and tools that maximize the efficiency, predictability, and visibility of our development teams. You will establish and build strong relationships between partner teams; drive key strategic initiatives from initiation to launch across B&OP and dependent teams; and act as a champion for continuous improvement while working to maximize the efficiency, predictability, and visibility of our projects.

You are a seasoned technical partner with prior experience managing large organizations, a passion for building great experiences, and the ability to create successful partnerships with partner departments and teams.

You have experience managing dozens of product development teams through all aspects of the product lifecycle including planning, implementation, testing, release, and operations. By blending your project management experience with superior collaboration and alignment skills, you will empower a department of hundreds of Engineers, Product Managers, and Designers to create epic entertainment experiences.

This role reports to the Senior Director of Operations, Battle.net & Online Products.

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The home studio for this role is Irvine, CA or Austin,TX.

Responsibilities:

• Build and Lead a Healthy & Effective Team of Project Managers: Hire, coach, motivate and inspire a team of project managers; creating an environment that promotes positive communication, collaboration, curiosity, and growth.
• Nurture a Healthy Development Environment: Utilize work systems that support effective, balanced, sustainable work while improving project predictability, individual and team agency, and product innovation. Champion efforts, activities and projects that build trust and collaboration within the organization. In partnership with leadership and HR, continually reassess the team’s maturity and health.
• Shape Product Strategy: Understand and facilitate the use of financial metrics, ROI, revenue potential and opportunities across the B&OP products and services to determine priorities and impact. Utilize industry expertise to generate ideas for new products or services. Remain up to date on research, market environment, industry trends, and technologies relating to the product. Look for ways to increase the profitability of efficiency of existing products. Review and utilize metrics reporting for fact-based decision making.
• Ambassador for the platform: Develop and maintain a strong understanding of Battle.net features, capabilities, current integration pain points, and best practices in order to provide strong proactive guidance to technical personnel responsible for integration. This person is going to need to be able to empathize with teams implementing our tech across the entire gaming hardware landscape (PC, Mac, Playstation, Xbox, Switch, iOS, Android space).
• Manage Complexity: Provide regular communication (cross- and intradepartmental, internal/external, and cross-hierarchy) to ensure transparency and progress of projects. Cut through the ambiguity to identify the core issues (both procedurally and technically).
• Accelerate the Process: Communicate dates, capacity, metrics/results, and prioritization to make sure we are executing on high profile deliverables. Negotiate agreements that meet critical development and launch deadlines while maintaining positive relationships. Focuses on delivery while keeping a vision to create a repeatable process.
• Drive Large Cross-Department Programs: Partner with colleagues on cross-discipline teams to bring together a unified deliverable. Develop and control deadlines, budgets, and activities associated with the program. Apply change, risk and resource management. Assess program performance and aim to maximize ROI. Resolve projects’ higher scope issues. Keep leadership and stakeholders appraised of the initiative status.
• Develop Work Systems & Drive Change: Work with a mindset of continuous improvement that uses data and retrospectives to guide our future processes. Identify gaps, inconsistencies and inefficiencies in our existing processes and tooling. Leverage creativity and problem solving to define new processes and tools that address identified opportunities. Build consensus and drive consistent adoption of new processes and tooling across the organization. Root out problems and risks, raises concerns, challenges convention, and inspires people to move in new directions.

Requirements

• Strong interpersonal skills, a love for collaboration, and a commitment to cultivating a healthy development environment
• Proven experience managing end-to-end releases of a well-known software product
• Previous experience leading project planning for large (300+) development teams; managing and coaching agile-at-scale; and developing department-level roadmaps
• Detailed knowledge of software lifecycle; software development best practices; project management methodologies (Agile, Lean, & Waterfall) and release management methodologies
• Previous experience managing teams of project managers
• Strong communication and executive-level presentation skills
• Self-driven, with the ability to deliver on ambiguous projects with incomplete data
• Seeks out opportunities for improvement on a continuous basis
• High attention to detail and project management rigor with an emphasis towards measurement

Your Platform

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world’s largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ – we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to [email protected]. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ – we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $143,060.00 – $264,846.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.

Tagged as: Collaboration, Communication, Compliance, Curiosity, Leadership, Operations, planning, Project Management, Requisition, Templates