Associate Director, Platform Planning

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 teams 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 ( ) 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. ( 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 industrys 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 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 - weve 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 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 - weve 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;
• 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.