If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Job Description
The Project Manager II oversees the execution and process of assigned projects and monitors change management strategies and outcomes. The Project Manager II will work with multiple teams, project requesters, and creative teams to develop project plans according to strategic development priorities, as defined by project requesters and leadership. This position is accountable for ensuring that the scope, dates, commitments, and project plans are communicated to all stakeholders and updated as necessary. The individual monitors and reports project status—including risks, issues affecting project schedules, and milestone achievements—to stakeholders and departmental leadership. The Project Manager II develops project plans and schedules and ensures projects meet departmental requirements, standards, policies, and deadlines. This individual is expected to keep fully informed of departmental strategies and priorities and effectively influence the work of project team members in line with those priorities. The Project Manager II is responsible for tracking deadlines, monitoring incoming requests, managing commitments, and utilizing project management tools to ensure project timelines are met, issues are escalated, identified opportunities for efficiencies and process/decisions are documented. This role is part of the WGU Labs Operations team and will support projects led across WGU Labs working with internal WGU Labs Project Team, external vendors/clients and projects/pilots at external partner schools.This role will work in WGU Labs, an affiliate of WGU. As the research and development (R&D) arm of WGU Lab’s focus is to rapidly prototype, test, build and share knowledge that will support student outcomes within WGU and across the broader field of Higher Ed. Learn more about our work here: wgulabs.org/
Responsibilities
Primary Responsibilities
Ability to manage project ambiguity and ever-changing direction. Experience working in R&D or start-up environments fueled by innovation a plus.
Strong stakeholder management skills including; internal WGU stakeholders, client/vendor management, and external pilot partners.
Focus on lean process improvement looking for areas to innovate, improve processes, document lessons learned and influencing iteration throughout the project team.
Maintains a thorough and detailed understanding of all department projects, purpose and status and ensures projects meet outlined processes.
Monitors, reports on, and makes visible project status, issues, resource requirements, dependencies, and project plans.
Keeps stakeholders and departmental leadership informed of project statuses, including, but not limited to, milestone achievements, toll gate progress, risks, and any issues that may adversely affect project schedules.
Documents project deliverables, outputs, and notes that capture why key project decisions were made and keeps project management records and systems accurate and up to date.
Understands departmental strategic priorities and influences the actions and work efforts of team members in line with those priorities.
Works closely with product team, content creators and other department stakeholders to align priorities and progress on all projects.
Manages traffic of incoming new requests - validates that appropriate requirements are included.
Produces timely and accurate reports as directed. Regular weekly progress report of Project Tasks completed, priorities for upcoming week, dependencies.
Provides input to develop or refine project management procedures and processes for the purpose of improving efficiency.
Develops realistic project plans and schedules by analyzing organizational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, task dependencies, resource requirements, work breakdown, and departmental strategy and priorities.
Ensures projects meet organizational standards and are managed in accordance with applicable policies, processes, and procedures.
Monitors change management strategies and outcomes of strategies.
Conducts retrospective work on closed/ completed projects to document lessons learned, and prepares retrospective documentation.
May conduct data analysis, research course and program level information as requested during the analysis phases of other projects.
Track project costs in order to meet budget.
Facilitating change requests to ensure that all parties are informed of the impacts on schedule and budget.
Models and mentors best practices in leveraging AI in daily workflows and AI solutions for continuous improvement
Completes and/or contributes to required reporting for example; end of grant cycle grant reporting, end of project close out, documented lessons learned and annual reports.
Performs other related duties as assigned.
Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Understanding of Change Management theory/techniques, and implementation into a project plan. Ability to influence change and motivate others.
Strong demonstration of stakeholder management; getting work done through others and coordinating and communicating at a variety of levels both upward, outward and within the project team to ensure ongoing alignment, agreement and yielding high levels of influence
Ability to use project management systems and tools.
History of successful execution of projects that impact an entire organization.
Professional integrity that represents the educational standards within higher education.
Works well in a team environment.
Solid technical and problem-solving skills.
Design thinking skills; ability to innovate and intuiting new solutions and processes
Technically savvy with ability to learn and navigate a variety of AI forward applications including; Claude, Asana, Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, etc.
Job Qualifications:
Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
Three (3) years of experience as the assigned project manager with responsibility for driving and leading project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.
Project Management Certification (preference towards PMI-PMP but open to considering certifications from other organizations)
Experience applying change management methodologies and practices.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience in EdTech, higher education, or other R&D environment.
Experience in project forecasting, strategic planning, risk management.
Master’s degree from an accredited institution or higher in relevant field.
Some combination of desirable certifications include:
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification preferred.
Proci Change Management certification
Six Sigma Certification such as Green or Black Belt
Experience in lieu of education
Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
Travel
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits, conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements
Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution
- Three years of experience as the assigned project manager (initiation through closure)
- Project management certification (PMI-PMP preferred, other certs accepted)
- Experience applying change management methodologies and practices
- Ability to use project management systems and tools (Asana, project tracking tools)
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills (written and oral)
- Ability to manage ambiguity and iterative R&D/start-up style projects
- Technically savvy with AI-forward applications and collaboration tools (Claude, Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub)
- Experience tracking project costs, forecasting, risk management, and producing project reports
- Experience in EdTech, higher education, or R&D environments
- Master's degree in a relevant field
- Change management or process improvement certifications (Prosci, Six Sigma Green/Black Belt)
What We Do
Western Governors University is a private, nonprofit online university that provides accessible, competency-based education designed for working professionals.
