Agile Project Manager, Customer Cultivation
Dallas, TX

Job Description

COMPANY PROFILE

For over a century, The Neiman Marcus Group has stayed focused on serving the unique needs of the luxury market. Today, that commitment is stronger than ever. The company has stayed true to the principles of its founders - to be recognized as the premier luxury retailer dedicated to providing our customers with distinctive merchandise and superior service. The Neiman Marcus Group is comprised of the Specialty Retail Stores division - which includes Neiman Marcus Stores and Bergdorf Goodman - and the Direct Marketing division, Neiman Marcus Direct. These brands offer upscale assortments of apparel, accessories, jewelry, beauty and decorative home products to the affluent consumer. The company operates 42 Neiman Marcus Stores across the United States and two Bergdorf Goodman stores in Manhattan. The company also operates 24 last call clearance centers. These store operations total more than six million gross square feet. Neiman Marcus Direct, the company's direct-to-consumer business, conducts both print catalog and online operations under the Neiman Marcus, Horchow, Last Call and Bergdorf Goodman brand names. Today, as an omni-channel retailer Neiman Marcus is known for the luxury merchandise in its stores, on its websites, and through the company's catalogs - enabling our customers to shop anytime, anywhere, and from any place.

Neiman Marcus is seeking a proven and passionate technology leader for a high-visibility project management role providing project leadership for the NMG customer marketing division. This position will play a significant role in modernizing and enhancing customer personalization and engagement strategies across the NMG enterprise. While this position is part of the Information Technology division, this is a collaborative role and will work across a blended team comprised of business leaders, strategic consulting partners and technology specialists to deliver on common strategic objectives.

POSITION OVERVIEW

This Scrum Project Manager will have day-to-day responsibility for managing complex customer personalization programs to completion. Applying a scrum framework, you will coordinate and lead the activities of multiple cross-functional teams to accelerate delivery of concurrent customer enrichment programs. In performing this role, the SPM will be expected to leverage their prior knowledge and experience and also serve as a coach, helping NMG stand up a newly formed Product team staffed with cross functional team members.

The ideal candidate will be highly motivated to embrace the servant leadership role and derive satisfaction as their team becomes progressively more proficient with project execution leveraging scrum principles. They will be expected to employ an appropriate level of planning and provide the right balance of agility and predictability.

This is a project leadership role; however, the most successful candidate will also possess an exceptional customer-facing presence, where their years spent developing crystal clear communication plans appropriate for all levels of the organization will be on display. The breadth of their assignments will involve working closely with the technical team at the task level, and then being able to quickly pivot and provide summarized progress updates to the senior leadership team. Having a calm demeanor and possessing high levels of confidence when interacting directly with all levels of the organization are imperative.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

* Release Planning and Sprint Tracking - Participate in estimation process around use case sizing and align sprint/release planning to team capacity; ensure adherence to industry standard of two to four weeks for Sprint delivery; organize and lead project status and working meetings; prepare and distribute burndown charts to track velocity progress; manage risks and issues and correct deviations from plans.
* Team Management - Assist in team development while holding teams accountable for their commitments; schedule and encourage participation in all Scrum ceremonies from Daily Standups to Showcase presentations; strive to remove roadblocks and leverage organizational resources to improve capacity for project work.
* Product Owner Support - Support Product Owner in managing customer expectations around project deliverables; manage stakeholder communications with appropriate level of detail; participate in definition and implementation of an effective system of project governance, as required.
* Scrum Framework and Continuous Improvement - Apply well-defined scrum principles designed to shorten delivery time horizon and deliver value in increments of one month or less; champion ongoing process improvement initiatives that implement agile best practices; conduct release Retrospectives that encourage full team participation and incorporate feedback designed to improve team satisfaction and velocity.
* Team Building - promote empowerment of the team and ensure that each team member is fully engaged in the project and making a meaningful contribution; encourage a sustainable pace with high-levels of quality for the team; assume very active role in mentoring and developing team members.

ESSENTIAL ABILITIES, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

* Minimum of 8 years experience leading cross functional teams consisting of business leaders, third party technology vendors and software development teams consisting of both onsite and offshore resources, with at least 4 years spent applying an Agile Methodology leading Marketing programs in the Personalized Customer Engagement space.
* Strong experience with Scrum Frameworks and Agile Deployment methodologies in a customer-facing production environment. This includes working with the QA and Release Management team to help develop test strategies and ensure all appropriate sign-offs are received and conform to a highly disciplined release management strategy.
* Detail-oriented, with strong organizational skills, able to work under deadlines in a changing environment, and ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects simultaneously.
* Deep financial acumen, with proven experience managing 8-figure capital projects that include labor, hardware and software; experience managing vendor SOW contract deliverables to ensure they are met; experience in the negotiation and establishment of new software, hardware and services contracts.
* Proven leadership skills, ability to prioritize, communicate clearly, a consistent track record of delivery, and an obsession about the customer experience.
* Ability to interact with executives, managers, subject matter experts, and product owners in matrix structure of product management team.
* Strong knowledge and understanding of the retail customer domain with the ability to establish/maintain high levels of stakeholder trust and confidence; prior experience leading customer loyalty, campaign management, and customer master data transformation efforts strongly preferred.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

The ideal candidate will possess the following performance and personal characteristics:

* Strong leadership skills with the ability to influence effectively without direct authority, balancing between competing priorities while remaining flexible and creative.
* Outstanding written and verbal communication skills with the ability to work up, down and across organizational levels.
* Strong business acumen, operations and problem-solving skills, along with the ability to assess current practices, identify opportunities for improvement, build consensus and drive the implementation of related changes.
* Excellent executive presence and a track record of success working closely with the C-Suite.
* Flexible nature with good sense of humor who looks to establish strong working relationships and enjoys being part of team of like-minded individuals

EDUCATION & TRAINING

A Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management Information Systems or a related discipline is required.

Certification as Project Management Professional (PMP), Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), or one of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) certifications is highly preferred.