Business Program Manager
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Virginia, Reston | |
 Jul 24, 2025 | |
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OverviewMicrosoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. Growth mindset encourages each of us to lean in and learn what matters most to our customers, to create the foundational knowledge that enables us to make customer-first decisions in everything we do. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us achieve our mission. The Microsoft Federal organization was established to address the unique mission, legal/regulatory requirements, and procurement rules and processes of the United States Government (USG). Microsoft Federal is committed to ensuring its resources - including appropriately qualified, experienced, and certified personnel (with necessary security clearances or otherwise) are available as needed to meet USG evolving needs. To that end, Microsoft embraces, as a mission-critical philosophy, flexibility in the recruiting, hiring, and workforce assignment of Microsoft Federal personnel. Microsoft Federal personnel can expect to serve in various roles in the Microsoft Federal organization during the course of their career to meet evolving USG needs, regardless of segment - Civilian, Defense, or intelligence community. We are seeking a Business Program Manager. The successful applicant is a professional who:Acts as a leading expert in their field to oversee teams who perform program landscape research and analysis.Defines the organizational strategy to identify and scope opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones impacting the broader unit and/or Microsoft.Applies strategic thought leadership when overseeing teams who define and track the success criteria and performance metrics.Provides the organizational vision and direction to teams who define and execute on a landing and communication plan, such as the target audience(s) and communication strategy, and gets feedback from teams if communication has landed.Shares industry technical expertise when understanding how systems work and impact one another.Sets direction for conducting cost-benefit analyses to examine performance to value drivers.Sets the direction for teams to collect and evaluate success criteria and performance metrics.Oversees teams who utilize direction and strategy from leadership advocate and influence sponsorship regarding business area of expertise in order to create and execute plans that shift current priorities to new organizational initiatives and objectives, and influences others to change behavior accordingly. In addition, this role has management responsibilities including driving employee growth and development, executing projects, and managing performance.
ResponsibilitiesBusiness Program Evaluation and ImprovementSets the direction for teams to collect and evaluate success criteria (e.g., Return On Investment (ROI), Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)) and performance metrics (e.g., acquisition, usage, impact, effectiveness, customer feedback), to use scorecards and dashboards to monitor programs and ensure all activities align with business and program objectives, and to report up to leadership and create leadership visibility. Provides strategic guidance for teams to use data analytics (e.g., scenario analyses) to derive insights and training that help identify current and future program risks and mitigation plans and opportunities to streamline and optimize programs based on lessons learned that impact the broader unit and/or Microsoft, and plan to sunset programs that are no longer necessary or meeting objectives.Sets direction for conducting cost-benefit analyses to examine performance to value drivers (e.g., profit and loss [P&L], return on investment [ROI]). Directs teams to drive monthly business review (MBR) and provides strategic guidance to help teams run rhythms regularly to identify what is working and what is not and make improvements accordingly.Oversees teams who utilize direction and strategy from leadership advocate and influence sponsorship regarding business area of expertise in order to create and execute plans that shift current priorities to new organizational initiatives and objectives, and influences others to change behavior accordingly. Provides strategic guidance to help teams define vision and strategy for change, broad and specific impact, and the flow of communication and interaction with the organization to drive change management processes. Acts as a subject matter expert when helping teams ensure buy in and adoption of the new program or change by others in the organization using change management methodologies and techniques. Ensures teams develop the collateral required to enable key stakeholders and others to be onboard. Oversees teams who drive the identification of training and reskilling needs, and mapping of individuals in partnership with Human Resources (HR). Oversees teams on driving partnership with business process outsourcing (BPO) vendors to ensure that their contractors have the proper skills and capabilities Microsoft requires. Business Program Excellence and ExecutionProvides the organizational vision and direction to teams who define and execute on a landing and communication plan (e.g., target audience(s), communication strategy) informed by Microsoft's security principles, and gets feedback from teams if communication has landed. Drives teams to maintain the rhythm of business (ROB) during plan execution to ensure participants and stakeholders are communicating and responding according to the necessary cadence. Oversees teams who work across teams (e.g., Landing, Design, Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, Technical Program Management) to ensure all program requirements are understood and can be met, all recipients of readiness are empowered to execute, and have significant impact across Microsoft.Defines the strategy for teams to evangelize the program to executive stakeholders, partners, and customers to gain buy in. Provides industry guidance to help teams leverage data and performance metrics (e.g., OKRs and KPIs) to demonstrate the value of the program, show business impact through storytelling and using scorecards and real time dashboards, and gain sponsorship and collaboration to drive change. Ensures teams adapt communication style and storytelling strategy according to audience and business needs.Business Program ManagementShares industry technical expertise when understanding how systems work and impact one another using process flow mapping tools. Shares industry expertise to help teams work with other teams (e.g., Supply Chain, Engineering, Sales) and senior stakeholders (up to executive leadership) to ensure program processes are rigorous and executed efficiently. Is accountable for process redesign and optimization to meet customer needs and market standards. Directs teams to develop processes around scope and scheduled changes for programs, and provides strategic and industry guidance and collaboration on how to communicate it to stakeholders. Ensures recognize process gaps/inefficiencies and drives strategies for optimization. Provides leading expertise when overseeing teams who overlook a portfolio of projects including the project plan, documentation of roles and responsibilities (e.g., responsible, accountable, consulted, informed [RACI] framework), timelines, milestones, financial management, performance metrics, and resource needs for programs. Ensures capacity of the team is aligned to project workload and complexity. Ensures teams communicate the program status to relevant stakeholders and holds them accountable for following the established schedule, risk mitigation plans, and processes. Establishes objectives and success criteria for the project in an inclusive collaborative manner with all stakeholders.Business Program Planning and DesignApplies strategic thought leadership when overseeing teams who define and track the success criteria (e.g., return on investment [ROI], service level agreements [SLAs], objectives and key results [OKRs] and key performance indicators [KPIs]) and performance metrics (e.g., quality, adoption, usage, impact, effectiveness) for the program, and identify which data will result in data-driven decision making. Ensures metrics reflect executive consensus and are accepted.Applies strategic insight when overseeing teams who work with cross-functional (e.g., organizational, product, business) stakeholders (e.g., Engineering) to design security-, privacy-, and other regulatorily-compliant programs from initiation to delivery. Anticipates landing needs and drives teams to produce collateral (e.g., proposals, strategy walking deck, internal and external pitch content) to incorporate stakeholder needs and ensure the business objectives are met and have significant impact Microsoft-wide. Simplifies complex inputs into program design. Defines the organizational strategy to identify and scope opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones impacting the broader unit and/or Microsoft. Proactively applies strategic thought leadership to drive teams to identify and resolve root problems (e.g., root-cause analysis), define the program strategy, establish and maintain alignment with stakeholders/leaders, gather program requirements, identify resource needs, create the project plan and targets, and work across teams to align on the plan of record. Drives teams to improve operations of existing programs by identifying appropriate methodologies and best practices, applying strategic insight into defining and diagnosing program issues, assessing various scenarios, and selecting the optimal scenario to resolve issues. Defines strategy to transform and drive clarity in high impact program issues and strive for simplification. Champions incorporating security principles into all planning processes. Acts as a leading expert in their field to oversee teams who perform program landscape research and analysis (e.g., internal and/or external market, sales, delivery), forecasting, and examine business insights and trends (e.g., customer feedback and expectations) to identify stakeholders and program scope, stay current, agile, and competitive, drive clarity, and deliver energy and results of outcomes impacting the broader unit and/or Microsoft. Applies strategic insight to teams solving complex problems and synthesizing across organizational boundaries. Defines the strategic direction to help teams drive consensus to prioritize key business goals, objectives, and strategies, and develop short- and long-term business priorities (e.g., artificial intelligence [AI], security, efficiency, quality). Ensures teams understand and identify current program risks, impact, and develops mitigation plans impacting the broader unit and/or Microsoft. | |