Project Manager, Instructional Design

Arise Virtual Solutions is changing the way companies think about call center services. Arise provides a virtual platform to connect primarily work-at-home service professionals running small call center businesses to Fortune 500 and other large companies. For over a decade, Arise’s platform has enabled superior and extremely flexible customer contact, business processing and consulting solutions for numerous companies around the globe, uniquely blending crowdsourcing innovation, virtual technology and operational efficiencies to deliver an enhanced customer experience for a company’s customers. 

Founded on a simple, but incredibly powerful mission, at Arise, we strive to change the way the world works. We continuously deliver powerful solutions and drive differentiated results while making a positive impact on the world we live in.  Recognized as a work-at-home call center pioneer, Arise has been delivering services in the cloud for nearly a decade through a network of tens of thousands of independent, work-at-home customer service, sales and technical support providers in the United States, Canada and Europe.

To learn more about No Boundaries, Better Results™ and how Arise Virtual Solutions can help you, please visit www.arise.com.

The Instructional Design Project Manager will be responsible for analyzing the Client’s Learning needs and expectations for Independent Business-employed Client Support Professionals (CSPs) who will be servicing Client businesses.   Additionally, the Instructional Design Project Manager will provide thought leadership and direction to Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractors who are engaged to design and develop Learning solutions for Client companies.

Specifically, the following describes the primary responsibilities of the Instructional Design Project Manager:

• Determine the Client’s Learning needs for Independent Business-employed Client Support Professionals (CSPs)
• Secure any existing Client curricula to potentially expedite the Instructional Design process.
• Provide thought leadership and direction to Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractors who are engaged to develop virtual instructor-led activities, blended eLearning solutions, simulations, animations, and other learning solutions to meet Client needs.
• Collaborate with Clients to analyze specific business needs, corporate culture, infrastructure, and performance gaps before designing and developing an advanced, custom, performance-improving training solution. 
• Project manage Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractors to execute end-to-end course development processes which includes designing and delivering solutions, executing project scope, validating business and technical requirements and parameters, and actively participating in the quality assurance role.
• Accomplish project objectives as defined by Client agreements and manage client expectations.
• Examine and recommend changes to a Client’s approach to reflect the best practices used in our virtual delivery model.
• Collaborate with the Arise Certification Operations area to deliver on all facets of certification around schedules, budget, and quality goals. This includes new client launches and large-scale projects.
• Monitor and organize projects in a database as they come in from clients and internal teams.
• Develop project plans, schedules, and objectives; establish and achieve financial objectives by preparing a project budget; schedule and approve expenditures; analyze variances and initiate corrective actions as needed.
• Keep skills current in the Instructional Design space by tracking industry advances, participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining personal networks, participating in professional organizations, and representing Arise in the industry. 
• Work with Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractors to develop project agreements for each new project when necessary. 
• Implement solutions by monitoring project progress, tracking action items, conducting design and implementation reviews, and examining, researching, and resolving issues and escalate issues with recommendations to appropriate levels. 
• Build relationship with Clients while managing expectations, communicating project status, and resolving open issues.  Respond to Client concerns, prepare reports, conduct reviews, and lead Client meetings.
• Lead performance quality analyses of new and existing Instructional content to ensure quality design standards as well as Arise standards are upheld. 
• Complete post-production work (e.g. make recommendations to improve results, identify work process improvements, develop and coordinate project controls and associated performance metrics to measure success).
• Coordinate Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractor resources to ensure the appropriate amount of time is spent on projects and help prioritize workload when the project conflicts with other job duties or projects.
• Other duties as assigned.
• This position does not manage internal, Arise Teammates.
• Minimal travel is required.

The performance of the Instructional Design Project Manager will be measured as follows:

• Arise company success metrics
• Interim and project completion deadlines met
• Delivery of high quality Instructional content for all projects
• Instructional design recommendations identified and proposed to Client
• Support and drive key initiatives to increase certification rates, performance, and results of Independent Business-employed Client Support Professionals (CSPs) 
• Build and maintain a pool of high quality Instructional Design Independent Businesses and contractors.

The Instructional Design Project Manager will also possess the following qualifications:

• Because of the virtual, work-from-home nature of this opportunity, prior experience in working from the home environment is a plus.
• Advanced interpersonal and leadership skills are necessary for success in this role. 
• Superior verbal and written communication skills and expert problem-solving and negotiation skills.
• Demonstrated confidence in internal and Client-facing meetings and presentations.
• Must be willing to adapt to various roles within a project and complete project-level work (while stepping out of PM role). 
• Bachelor’s Degree and 3-5 years of experience as a Project Manager in the areas of Instructional Systems Design (ISD), Training, Performance Improvement, or Client-facing consulting is necessary.  Considered a plus would be any combination of a Master’s degree in ISD, Training, Adult Learning & Development, Organizational Development, or Performance Improvement and certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) or similar professional organization.
• A strong background in ISD that includes 4+ years of experience focused on course design and development covering multiple skills and systems with high and/or low-stakes assessments.
• Proven ability to complete a robust Analysis as part of the overall ISD process.
• Training measurement and evaluation skills considered a plus.
• Experience with Learning Management Systems.
• Experience with risk analysis. 
• Strong analytical, teamwork, problem solving, negotiation and time management skills are necessary. 
• 2+ years of call center experience (specifically with metrics such as AHT, ATT, CSAT, QA, Sales).
• Experience with a Blended Learning Environments to include:
  1. Synchronous virtual
  2. Asynchronous virtual
  3. Combination of Synchronous and Asynchronous virtual
• Experience with one or more LMS systems that utilized online collaboration tools. 
• High-level Instructional Design Consulting skills.
• Must be proficient with Microsoft Office Suite, Project, Visio, web authoring tools, and virtual classroom delivery platforms such as Adobe and/or Blackboard.