Product Planning Manager

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Amex GBT's Product Planning & Performance Team is dedicated to optimizing the intersection between the product, technology, and business, translating strategic priorities into tangible delivery roadmaps. This role is located in Chicago and the ideal candidate will report to the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We build value for leaders and teams by establishing governance, processes, and rhythm of business ceremonies, driving trust, visibility, accountability, and ownership. We are responsible for designing and implementing streamlined planning processes using common frameworks and tools that are adopted across product and enterprise services teams to identify dependencies, secure resources, visualize roadmaps, contextualize OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) / KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and effectively deliver commitments in each development period.

As a Planning & Performance Manager for Product teams, you will be accountable for driving planning best practices and facilitating the rhythm of business ceremonies that enable executive decision-making. You will enable teams to consistently deliver the best possible products, clearly aligned with overall strategy & objectives, by running effective planning processes, and continuously improving by assessing our outcomes. You will be a highly effective communicator with a passion to enable and guide the direction of the team in close partnership with Product, technology, analytics, and finance leadership.

What You'll Doing:

• Oversee Planning, Governance, and Tooling: Own the planning process, governance, and implementation of tooling for assigned teams, ensuring operational excellence across product tech and stakeholder teams.
• Align Initiatives with Strategic Priorities: Ensure team initiatives are fully aligned with GBT's strategic priorities and facilitate effective decision-making and commitment to roadmaps.
  Facilitate Dependency Mapping and Risk Management: Map cross-team dependencies, manage risks and constraints, and influence overall delivery timelines for planning milestones and gates.
• Provide Holistic Portfolio Oversight and Communication: Offer comprehensive visibility into the product portfolio, celebrate successes, flag risks, escalate blockers, and lead communications and relationships with partners throughout the Product organization.
• Drive Feature and Product Delivery: Enable teams to define, plan, and deliver high-quality features, products, and platforms, embedding best practices and collaboration with partner functions.
• Ensure High-Quality Documentation and Coaching: Drive high standards for planning documentation, coach stakeholders on best practices, and build effective knowledge-sharing programs.
• Analyze and Improve Planning Processes: Review plans, allocations, and carry-overs at the end of each development period, iterating and improving planning processes, including proactively identifying operational improvements and building scalable solutions.
• Manage Backlog Intake and Capacity Planning: Oversee the common backlog intake process, ensure timely evaluation of opportunities, and facilitate long-term capacity, resource, and allocation planning.
• Collaborate with Stakeholders and Assess Business Impact: Partner closely with internal and external stakeholders, including Product, Tech, Analytics, Program Management, Business Operations, and finance teams, to assess business impacts and investment needs.
• Drive Operational Improvements and Embed Best Practices: Define and embed product operations best practices, provide clear visibility into roadmap delivery health and OKR/KPI performance, facilitate OKR/KPI review ceremonies, and identify opportunities for continuous improvement and feedback loop enhancements.

What We're Looking For:

• Bachelor degree in business, Computer Science, or related technical field. Professional experience as a Product Operations Manager/Business Operations manager/ Program Manager/ Product Manager.
• Strong background in business and financial analysis.
• Design and Implement Systems : Proven experience designing and implementing effective planning processes and operational systems to drive efficiency.
• Develop Outcome-Driven Programs : Ability to define, develop, and manage programs that achieve measurable outcomes and align with strategic goals.
• Understand Development Lifecycles : Deep understanding of and participation in the product/tech development lifecycle, with the ability to apply Agile or traditional methodologies as appropriate.
• Analyze and Address Bottlenecks : Apply a whole-systems approach to analyze issues, assess bottlenecks, and simplify workflows for improved team performance.
• Articulate Process and Program Impacts : Ability to clearly communicate the impacts, benefits, and changes of processes and programs to stakeholders, improving understanding and addressing concerns to build trust.
• Create and Tailor Communication Materials : Experience developing clear, concise, and organized materials tailored to various audiences, including policies, procedures, guidelines, and presentations.
• Leverage Data for Decision-Making : Experience building and using business cases, capacity plans, and data analysis to inform decisions. Experience utilizing data visualization tools to influence stakeholders and senior leaders effectively.
• Facilitate Cross-Team Discussions : Experience working effectively with Product Managers, Engineers, Technical Product Managers, and other cross-functional team members. Strong ability to drive discussions around scoping, scheduling, and execution of product and technology work-streams across multiple teams.

Location

The Experience

Work and life: Find your happy medium at Amex GBT.

• Flexible benefits are tailored to each country and start the day you do. These include health and welfare insurance plans, retirement programs, parental leave, adoption assistance, and more.

• Travel perks: get a choice of deals each week from major travel providers on everything from flights to hotels to cruises and car rentals.

• Develop the skills you want when the time is right for you, with global tuition assistance, access to over 20,000 courses on our learning platform, leadership courses, and new job openings available to internal candidates first.

• We strive to champion Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in every aspect of our business at GBT. You can connect with colleagues through our global Inclusion Groups, centered around common identities or initiatives, to discuss challenges, obstacles, achievements, and drive company awareness and action.

• Wellbeing resources to support mental and emotional health for you and your immediate family.

• And much more

This role is for Egencia LLC ("Egencia" or the "Company"), a member of the American Express Global Business Travel family of companies.

A ll applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to age, sex, gender (and characteristics related to sex and gender), pregnancy (and related medical conditions), race, color, citizenship, religion, disability, or any other class or characteristic protected by law.

Furthermore, we are committed to providing reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the hiring process. For details regarding how we protect your data, please consult GBT Recruitment Privacy Statement .

What if I don't meet every requirement? If you're passionate about our mission and believe you'd be a phenomenal addition to our team, don't worry about "checking every box;" please apply anyway. You may be exactly the person we're looking for