Download 7. Job Challenge(s) - networx Recruitment

JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title
Digital Operations Product Champion: eBooks
Job Holder
Open (FOR DISTRIBUTION TO CANDIDATES)
Reports to
Global Manager of Digital Projects
Supervisor
Date
20 March 2015
and/or Digital Operations
1. Job Purpose
To ensure implementation of Cambridge University Press ELT digital strategy
relevant to eBooks by ensuring effective requirements gathering, user acceptance
testing, production process optimization. This will include internal stakeholder
engagement, documentation and training, and organizational skills. Key
collaborators will be the ELT Digital Products Board, Digital Operations leadership,
the ELT Director of Digital Strategy and Digital Portfolio Managers.
2. Dimensions
Financial:
The role holder has the following fiscal responsibilities:
* Review ebooks suppliers to ensure appropriate cost savings.
* Monitor spending against baseline for all ebooks.
additionally, work with colleagues in the Portfolio team to develop baseline
costs and reliable project cost estimates for projects approaching approval.
Staff:
Role holder will not typically line manage staff. However, they will conduct
oversight on conformance to production standards for teams of 4-6. Role
holder is also responsible for training of internal and external collaborators
on eBook production standards.
Other:
There will be a number of ISBNs relevant to the eBook Product Champion
at a time. Additionally the role holder will report on cost/time/labor
baselines to the ELT Digital Products Board. The role holder will coordinate
with Publishing and the ELT Director of Digital Strategy to identify long
term eBook needs, and then coordnate with Technology to translate those
needs into software development projects. Finally, the Product Champion
oversees acceptance testing for all product feature updates, on behalf of the
Digital Products Board and ELT Publishing.
3. Principal Accountabilities
1. Manage product type standards
The Product Champion will be the expert on standards for eBooks. To this end the
Product Champion will:
•
Be the 'go to' person for Publishers, Digital Project Managers and any other
staff who have queries about internal and general eBook standards
•
Oversee the library of project process assets and other documentation and
templates relevant to eBooks.
•
Be the lead change agent for process and other standards improvements, such
that product development is always improving
•
Ensure that effective training in the product type standards is available to all
staff who require it
•
To have a keen grasp of the efficiencies and issues within the production
process and its baseline performance on budget, schedule and labor inputs.
Additionally, to proactively act to create sustainable improvements to those baselines.
•
The dominant standards at this time are ePub3 and HTML5 supported by
CSS and Javascript.
2. Curate product type analytics
The Product Champion will oversee and report on performance for eBooks. This
may include topics such as in-market performance of product and review of market
and competitor trends relevant to the product type. This will require the Product
Champion to:
•
Ensure that instances of the assigned product type and its production
processes are adequately creating needed data streams
•
Prepare regular reports on that data, delivered to the ELT Digital Products
Board and other parties
•
Respond to informational requests as needed and to suggest and oversee
useful review projects
•
Assist in the development and tracking of key performance indicators
relevant to the product type and its production
3. Support new development acceptance
The Product Champion will be closely involved in the acceptance process for new
developments, although sign off itself will be by a senior business representative). To
this end the Product Champion will:
•
Work closely with senior stakeholders to ensure that sign off criteria are
appropriately comprehensive and stated
•
Liaise with the Digital Operations Quality Assurance Manager and staff to
create appropriate test scripts and other process assets to ensure effective acceptance
•
Effectively schedule testing through Digital Operations and other Press staff,
through established resource assignment channels
•
Ensure that known risks and issues are properly communicated to senior
business representatives at the time of any sign off decision
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4. Receive and maintain product type feature requests
An important duty of the Product Champion is to be the first port of all for all
stakeholders to make their feature requests, so the ELT Digital Products Board (or a
body the Board delegates to) and Director of Digital Strategy are adequately
informed when making decisions. To this end, the Product Champion will:
* Receive, collate, and maintain all product type feature requests. This will be done
in collaboration with Digital Portfolio Managers and other staff.
* Advise stakeholders on the feature requests, whether they are already on the
roadmap or should be added to the backlog to be considered by the Digital Products
Board (or a body the Board delegates to).
* In collaboration with Technology Solutions Architects, present feature requests to
the Digital Products Board (or a body the Board delegates to) for priortisation of
these requests, which will then be the basis of a software development roadmap,
which the Technology Solutions Architect will manage.
* Where appropriate, collaborate with Technology Solutions Architect to develop
and analyze requirements into technical specifications.
* Brief the ELT Digital Products Board (or a body the Board delegates to) on feature
requests, how they might manifest in a technological solution, and what the impacts
of a particular solution choice might be.
5. Post-publication support
The Product Champion is responsible for management of long-term developments
for a given product type factors will often require consideration and even execution
of post-publication effort. To this end the Product Champion will:
•
Respond to queries escalated from second-line technical support.
•
Oversee post-publication update projects.
•
Monitor in-product analytics and other data sources created from customer
usage of on-press products
On occasion, the Product Champion will be required to contribute directly to the
resolution of special cases.
6. Project Management
The Product Champion will be expected to oversee their own projects, although
these will typically be aligned with the duties stated above. To this end the Product
Champion will engage in project management and will:
•
Draft and submit budget proposals, and recommend subsequent budget
changes where necessary.
•
Develop full project plans and associated communications documents.
•
Delegate tasks and responsibilities to appropriate personnel.
•
Identify and resolve issues and conflicts within any appointed team.
•
Identify and manage assumptions, dependencies, and critical path.
•
Develop and deliver progress reports, proposals, requirements
documentation, and presentations.
•
Proactively manage changes in scope, identify potential crises, and devise
contingency plans.
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Additional Duties
To carry out any other duties which may be reasonably expected of you by your immediate
manager or a senior director.
Press Policies and Procedures
To abide by all Press policies and procedures, as detailed in your contract of employment
and the Staff Handbook, e.g. Health and Safety, e-mail and Internet use and standards of
behaviour.
4. Context
(a) Operating Environment:
The Product Champion ensures effective
implementation of ELT Digital Strategy by
helping to ensure that digital product
development needs are comprehensively
captured and effectively implemented. They also
ensure that staff are aware of and operating to
production standards. They do this in a data-rich
environment and ensure that senior
stakeholders, including Director and CIO-level,
are informed.
(b) Framework & Boundaries:
The Product Champion will engage with:
Procurement, Legal, SAP, Publishing, Marketing,
Sales, CAMS systems and procedures. They will
affect many of these systems by ensuring that they
are effective in gaining needed operational data.
Additionally the Product Champion will engage
frequently with customer analytics and other
marketing analytics, particularly through Google
Analytics and similar systems.
(c) Organisation:
The Product Champion will report to the Global
Manager of Digital Projects or subordinate
supervisors and will rarely have direct reports of
their own. However, the execution of their duty
will require at least a dotted line to the Global
Manager of Digital Projects. They will also receive
assignments from the ELT Digital Products
Board, which includes ELT Directors and the
Press's Chief Information Officer.
5. Relationships
All interaction is collaborative. There are no
subordinates per se, but the Product Champion
(a) Subordinates:
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does ensure that work standards are met and
processes followed where deviation will be
handled by discussion and then escalation to a
manager.
Interaction with line managers will be through
weekly 1:1 meetings in a standard method.
Product Champions will also meet as a group with
the Global Manager of Digital Projects at least
monthly. They will also meet with the GMoDP
more frequently in the execution of particular
projects. Product Champions will meet with the
Digital Products Board at least once every 1-3
months.
(b) Superior(s):
(c) Other Contacts:
Within the company
ELT Digital Products Board, Deputy Managing
Director, Global Director of Publishing
Operations, Director of Digital Strategy, Global
Manager of Digital Products for strategic
purposes. Also, Publishing Managers, Digital
Portfolio Managers, Managing Editors, customers
and Marketing Product Managers for stakeholder
analysis. Editors, Project Managers and Project
Coordinators and others in larger groups to
deliver trainings. Technology Business Analysts
and others to ensure project success.
Software development, project management and
quality assurance suppliers as needed during all
phases of the software lifecycle, to ensure effective
software development and deployment.
Outside the company
6. Knowledge and Experience
•
BA, MA or equivalent in an education, operations, publishing or softwarerelated field.
•
Established Project Management skills, particularly in the knowledge areas of
cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk and procurement management.
An industry recognized project management certificate is desired (e.g. APMP, PMIPMP, PMI-ACP, Prince2…)
•
Established successes in digital product production/publishing, ELT and
eBooks specifically and then education generally is preferred.
•
Awareness of and confidence with the technical standards of ePub3, HTML5,
CSS, Javascript, mobile app deployment (e.g. iTunes and Play) and best practices in
software architecture. But, developer-level competence is not required.
•
Experience working with external suppliers of software and project services
including contracting and RFP procedures, oversight and managing cross-cultural
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communication.
•
Coaching and other communication skills evidenced by 2 or more years of
successful project management and/or stakeholder analysis.
•
Demonstrated knowledge of software quality assurance processes, especially
functional, compatibility and regression testing and supplier management.
Knowledge of formal QA methodologies is a plus (e.g. Quality function deployment,
Unit testing and modern software architecture techniques…)
•
Quantitative analysis skills including the ability to distill and communicate
quantitative trends and details to non-technical audiences and to frame the same for
senior stakeholders. Experience with Google Analytics or similar products is desired.
7. Job Challenge(s):
The greatest challenge faced by Product Champions is acting as advocates for change
that will benefit the Press as a whole. Digital is an ever increasing component of our
product mix, and it will only grow.
As we produce products that are inherently experimental. we strive to create
processes and revise toreviwio existing workflows to create efficiencies that will
position the Press to normalize high technology products into business as usual
activities.
All of this must be accomplished within limited budgets and tight timescales against
the background of the fast moving world of technology, with updates systems and
customer behavior coming faster than ever before.
8. Additional Information:
This is a new role demanded by the fact of increasing growth in the volume of digital
component publishing and the aggregate pre-press spend that enables it. It is an
oversight role that is considered critical to achieving cost-effective and reliable
production performance. It is also a strategic role in that it is central to effective
information flow to/from senior decision makers on the topics of which product
types/enhancements should be pursued and whether those products/enhancements
are fit for release to the market.
9. Sign Off
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Manager Click here to enter text.
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