Senior Project Manager, INOW

Summary

Guidewire is a software company.

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation. 

Job Description

Our Professional Services team is looking for a customer-oriented Senior Project Manager with a track record of delivery expertise on enterprise programs to work directly with customers during the implementation of InsuranceNow.
 

What You'll Do

• Ability to create, maintain, and ‘own’ Project Roadmap for signed customer support efforts.

• Ability to track a Project budget forecast for the duration of customer support efforts.

• Manages dependencies and timing between work requests.

• Ability to draft statements of work and negotiate with customers.

• Provide leadership, management, and oversight of a single or multiple Implementation and Support projects.

• Demonstrated flexibility in delivering projects using different SDLC methods.

• Provide the project team direction and prioritization of activities per defined and agreed.

• Builds and fosters strong and trusted relationships with customers. Owns and manages customer relationships during implementation. Determines the appropriate amount of Project Management ‘on-site’ time required to maintain relationships.

• Manages customer expectations at both the Project Team and Executive Level through the Project Lifecycle

• Holds the Guidewire team and customer team accountable to agreed-upon deliverables and associated milestones, sets expectations around impacts of delays, and manages stakeholder expectations throughout the implementation process. Escalates delays and project impacts appropriately and creates appropriate project artifacts.

• Captures, manages, and plans mitigation/resolution of project issues and risks.

• Manages internal and external team/stakeholder expectations through daily, weekly, and monthly communications with resources/stakeholders at all levels (team through C level).

• Tracks project budget, risks, and issues and reports on a weekly basis, presenting to Customer Sponsor/Steering Committee at least once monthly. Provides suggestions on how to manage delivery to Customer Leadership successfully.

• Understands customer Production needs and determines Staffing Model, Release Plan, and Roadmap to meet these needs. Direct team as to this plan.

• Balances customer Production Support needs with Implementation activities to ensure overall delivery meets customer needs.

• Determines ‘Implementation Support’ budget approach with customer sponsors, and enforces.

• Travel based on customer needs; typically with new customer kickoff.

• East coast time zone work hours and travel (less than 25%) may be required

What You'll Bring

• Large enterprise program delivery

• P&C Insurance industry – carrier-side is a plus

• Work in a highly matrixed organization

• Proven track record of delivery success

• SaaS software implementation experience

• Executive level customer facing experience

• Extensive Project Management experience; Must have project experience managing complex enterprise level project(s)

• Experience working across multiple projects, and in a project team environment.

• Resource management experience

• Demonstrated skill in working with implementation partners, and managing multi-functional projects including software package implementations and information architecture.

• Follows Agile, Waterfall, or other project management methodologies to ensure complete, documented deliverables, controls, issue resolution, risk mitigation, etc.

• Very strong communication skills (listening, written and verbal).

• Demonstrated excellent negotiation skills within challenging situations.

• Ability to anticipate, mitigate, and resolve risks and conflicts across different stakeholders.

• Ability to function successfully within fast pac