Sr Manager, Product Operations

at  Instructure

Our Product Operations discipline is a key part of our Product organization and supports our 400+ member R&D team. We are looking for a Senior Manager, Product Operations who will be part of the R&D leadership team, leading the product operations function which plays a critical role in establishing, securing adoption, iterating, and optimizing the processes, tools, and structures we use to not only plan and build products, but also communicate and release them.
As the operations leader of the Product team, you will be accountable for the health and maturity of our product processes and the effectiveness of the communication of the work being done to both internal and external stakeholders. Success of the role will be measured on our ability to effectively plan, execute, adjust and communicate our R&D priorities and OKRs, as well as on the internal stakeholder satisfaction (NPS) with the R&D team.
In this role, you will also be called upon to serve as a harmonizing force for the collective engineering, product, and product design R&D leadership team, coaching and guiding this instrumental group to a platform-focused (vs. product), global-first, collective mindset. In partnership with the other leaders in R&D, you will also be a key contributor to the annual planning process – both in the work to be done, and its reporting and communication processes.

• Optimize Product Opportunity planning including fully developed business cases, inclusive of potential value unlocked, and simplified prioritization of what’s most important to our users, our enterprise, and our shareholders
• Developing and managing regular ‘rhythm of the business’ calendar, including regular review of projects and progress against OKRs, annual and quarterly planning and shareouts
• Managing the communication of our roadmaps, releases, experiments - partnering with the relevant organizational stakeholders to understand optimal lead times, comms cadences and formats, and navigating changes to established plans
• Managing the structures and processes of information intake as it relates to new ideas, customer feedback, issues, sales/rfp needs, community feedback to shape R&D opportunity identification and priorities
• Defining, socializing, operating, and evolving R&D team’s operational practices, cadences, documents – including strategic planning, budgeting, and discovery in close partnership with R&D leadership
• In partnership with Engineering Delivery Management, progress delivery processes to maturation realizing consistent accuracy in reporting our fulfillment of commitments and associated performance outcomes—easily accessible and ubiquitously understood