Technical Program Manager III: Planning & Product Operations

Introduction to team

Expedia Group Product Planning & Product Operations Team is dedicated to optimizing the intersection between Product, Technology and Design, translating strategic priorities into tangible delivery roadmaps. We build value for leaders and teams by establishing governance, processes and rhythm of business ceremonies, driving trust, visibility, accountability, and ownership. We are responsible for designing and implementing streamlined planning processes using common frameworks and tools that are adopted across all of Expedia Group (EG) to identify dependencies, secure resources, visualize roadmaps, contextualize OKRs (Objective & Key Results) / KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and effectively deliver committed work quarter over quarter.

As the Technical Program Manager for Planning & Product Operations for two large teams, you will be accountable for driving planning best practices and facilitating rhythm of business ceremonies that enable executive decision-making. You will be a highly effective communicator with a passion to enable and guide the direction of the team in close partnership with Product, Tech, Design and Strategy leadership.

In this role, you will:

• Own EG’s quarterly planning process, governance, and tooling implementation for your assigned teams, delivering operational excellence across all Product, Tech, and Design teams

• Fully align your teams to EG’s strategic priorities by embedding planning best practices across all touchpoints in collaboration with partner functions

• Enable teams to define, plan and deliver world class features, products and platforms

• Facilitate long-term capacity allocation planning and roadmap sequencing of strategic priorities

• Facilitate cross-team dependency mapping, enabling roadmap commitment decision-making

• Manage risks/constraints and influence overall delivery timelines for planning milestones and gates

• Provide Product with a holistic portfolio view, celebrating wins, flagging risks and escalating blockers

• Drive high quality Jira data standards, coaching stakeholders on best practices

• Build effective training and knowledge-sharing programs/materials that enforce and reaffirm Planning processes

• Perform carry-over analysis quarter to quarter for your assigned teams to iterate and improve quarterly planning

• Partner closely with internal and external Product, Tech, Design, Strategy, Analytics, Program Management and Business Operations stakeholders and leadership

• Lead communications and relationships with partners throughout the Expedia organization

• Define and embed product ops best practices within your teams, providing clear visibility into roadmap delivery health and OKR/KPI performance and ensure they are effectively communicated

• Facilitate Product and OKR/KPI review ceremonies

• Identify product process, governance, tooling and feedback loop opportunities, partnering with accountable stakeholders to deliver continuous improvements

• Proactive identify areas of operational improvement with your team, building solutions that we scalable cross-team

Experience and qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent related professional experience

• 6+ years of experience as a Technical Program Manager / Product Manager / Product Operations Manager

• Excellent interpersonal skills

• Self-starter, accustomed to working in a changing environment

• Experience building capacity plans, performing data analysis, and influencing senior leaders to make prompt decisions based on said plans and analysis

• Validated experience designing and implementing effective planning processes and operations systems

• Strong ability to drive discussions among multiple business and technical teams to scope and schedule Product & Technology workstreams

• Experience collaborating with Developers, Technical Product Managers, UX Designers, Product Managers, Engineers, and other team members from broad cross-sections of organizations

• Experience leveraging data visualization tools to help influence stakeholders

• Understands and participates in the product/tech development lifecycle

• Understands when to apply Agile methodologies vs. traditional methodologies to achieve the best development outcome

• Proven ability to define and develop outcome-driven programs

• Can clearly communicate process and program impact, benefits, and changes to stakeholders to improve knowledge, change attitudes and behaviors, and improve the working conditions and quality of life for affected teams

• Thinks holistically to find opportunities around policies/ processes to increase efficiency across organizational boundaries

• Aids with a whole-systems approach to analyzing issues by ensuring all components (structure, people, process, and technology) are found and accounted for

• Assesses bottlenecks in work processes within teams to streamline and simplify workflows

• Gains stakeholder trust by effectively addressing their concerns to further long-term interests

• Confirms comprehension and understanding of complex information and impact to the business by correctly and clearly answering routine questions

• Creates clear, concise, and organized communication materials (e.g., policies & procedures, guidelines, presentations, messages)

• Considers and understands the audience’s specific needs and comprehension level to find the right message and delivery method, limiting or explaining technical language

• Communicates a compelling rationale and narrative to peers and partners