Business Process Engineer

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Job Profile Summary:

The Business Process Engineering team is responsible for developing and implementing academic business processes optimized to support the growth, service level, and cost performance needs of the individual colleges and functional practices of WGU. This team works very closely with the business analysts in the Education Technology team and the process owners within the Academic Operations teams to drive detailed redesign and re-engineering of current processes and to lead the establishment of brand new, breakthrough processes to ensure WGU’s fulfillment of our Student Obsession mission and goals.

The Business Process Engineer (BPE) brings a deep working knowledge of Lean and Six Sigma tools to analyze and design optimized processes and value streams as a working member of our project teams.  This position works to optimize the fine process details of very focused workflows and the groups of processes (systems) that drive value streams across multiple colleges or functions.  BPEs work to model capacity, service levels, outcomes, and cost over time in conjunction with Finance and Operations teams to predict and prevent supply and demand imbalances leading to sub-optimized process performance.  

The BPE role is a high-visibility position and requires technical process design/analysis/modeling skills, advanced team leadership, and communication skills. The position will be directly involved in the largest and most important transformation projects at WGU.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Responsible for being the Lean and Six Sigma tools and methodologies expert on project teams and process redesign teams.
• Performs detailed process analysis using Lean and Six Sigma tools to drive the design and implementation of optimized business processes for academic operations practices, functions, and colleges.
• Coaches, trains, and assists other team members and WGU employees in using process optimization methodologies and Lean/Six Sigma tools.
• Uses Project Management methodologies to plan workflows and work assignments to ensure the on-time completion of process design and redesign projects. 
• Creates and maintains a detailed business process architecture mapping of the Practice’s process.
• Develops measurement plans with high level and low level KPIs to identify efficiencies and prevent waste in the organization.
• Directs day-to-day process improvement work teams and project teams in using process optimization tools and data to ensure the best use of the team members’ time.  This includes leading, mentoring, demonstrating, and executing the tools and methodologies as needed to ensure the on-time success of the team.
• Designs and implements operational and data-driven decision support systems to establish and maintain a culture of execution and continuous process improvement (CPI).
• Supports process and cultural transformation by guiding stakeholders through change management efforts.
• Constructs and communicates project status reports at all levels in the organization.
• Collaborates with other professionals inside and outside the university to promote a positive, student-obsessed atmosphere.
• Consistently exhibits WGU’s Leadership Principles
• Responds urgently to organization needs and exhibits excellent judgment to deliver results.
• Performs other related duties as assigned. 

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Knowledge of Lean & Six Sigma tools and concepts
• Solid understanding of quality Improvement methodologies
• Working knowledge/proficiency in Project Management Processes & Principles
• Fundamental understanding of Business Process Architecture Mapping
• Investigate appropriate resources and involve partners when appropriate. Future-oriented. Assesses what will help or hinder achieving goals. Focuses on what is essential.
• Deals with others in a considerate, respectful, and unbiased manner. Approaches conflict proactively. So