Program Manager, Solution Innovation

The Program Manager, Solution Innovation is responsible for managing the solution innovation workstreams, governance process, and operating pathway that moves ideas, concepts, pilots, and solution opportunities through disciplined evaluation, prioritization, stage-gate review, roadmap alignment, and execution tracking. Reporting to the Group Product Owner – Solution Innovation and Design, this role ensures the solution innovation pathway is clearly documented, consistently applied, transparent to stakeholders, and aligned with CPS product and solution development priorities. 

This role supports product strategy execution by translating innovation priorities, market insights, customer needs, and leadership decisions into structured program plans, committee routines, stage-gate deliverables, roadmap updates, and implementation requirements. The role maintains the operating infrastructure that enables the Group Product Owner, Product Development Committee, solution teams, commercialization partners, analytics, legal/compliance, operations, and other stakeholders to evaluate and advance innovation opportunities in a repeatable and measurable way. 

This role does not own product strategy or final product prioritization decisions; instead, it owns the program management discipline, governance administration, process documentation, stakeholder coordination, dependency tracking, and reporting routines required to support timely and effective solution innovation decisions. The Program Manager ensures innovation items are organized, stage-gate materials are complete, committee decisions are captured, roadmap and backlog data are maintained, and risks, issues, decisions, and follow-ups are visible and actionable. 

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Solution Innovation Pathway Management 

• Implement, maintain, and continuously improve the Solution Innovation pathway from idea intake through discovery, validation, pilot/proof-of-concept, scale recommendation, roadmap transition, and post-decision follow-up. 

• Translate the priorities of the Group Product Owner – Solution Innovation and Design into structured program plans, operating routines, meeting cadences, decision checkpoints, documentation requirements, and stakeholder deliverables. 

• Define and maintain pathway documentation including process maps, stage-gate expectations, intake criteria, readiness checklists, decision rights, artifacts, intake forms, governance calendars, and communication protocols. 

• Ensure the innovation pathway is applied consistently across solution workstreams while remaining flexible enough to support different types of innovation opportunities, pilots, prototypes, and business cases. 

• Identify process bottlenecks, ambiguous handoffs, inconsistent documentation, and decision delays; recommend and implement improvements to increase clarity, speed, accountability, and stakeholder alignment. 

Product Development Committee Operations and Governance 

• Coordinate and manage the Product Development Committee operating rhythm, including agenda planning, materials intake, pre-read preparation, meeting facilitation support, decision documentation, action tracking, and follow-up communication. 

• Support the Group Product Owner in preparing innovation concepts, backlog recommendations, stage-gate materials, and roadmap updates for Product Development Committee review. 

• Ensure committee decisions, open questions, risks, approvals, deferrals, and next steps are captured accurately and communicated to appropriate stakeholders. 

• Maintain governance records and decision logs to support transparency, traceability, and accountability across innovation pathway decisions. 

• Monitor adherence to Product Development Committee processes and recommend refinements to governance structure, meeting cadence, decision standards, and escalation pathways. 

Innovation Backlog and Roadmap Administration 

• Maintain the innovation backlog with current information on opportunity status, owner, strategic theme, stage-gate status, customer value, business rationale, dependencies, risks, target timing, and next actions. 

• Support roadmap administration for solution innovation initiatives by tracking milestones, sequencing, stage transitions, prioritization inputs, and linkage to CPS solution strategy. 

• Partner with the Group Product Owner and product stakeholders to ensure innovation backlog and roadmap data reflect current priorities, leadership decisions, capacity constraints, and dependencies. 

• Develop and maintain reporting views that allow leadership to understand backlog health, pathway throughput, stage-gate progress, pipeline constraints, and upcoming decisions. 

• Identify stale, duplicative, misaligned, or blocked backlog items and coordinate with owners to recommend disposition, refresh, escalation, or removal. 

Stage-Gate Process Execution and Artifact Management 

• Manage stage-gate execution across solution innovation workstreams, including intake readiness, discovery documentation, problem statements, VOC summaries, pilot objectives, success criteria, feasibility inputs, risk assessments, and transition recommendations. 

• Ensure required artifacts are developed, updated, reviewed, and stored in the appropriate location before stage-gate reviews and committee discussions. 

• Coordinate with Product Owners, Product Managers, solution development teams, analytics, operations, commercialization, legal/compliance, finance, and other stakeholders to gather required stage-gate inputs. 

• Track gate decisions and follow-up actions, ensuring workstream owners understand expectations required to progress to the next stage. 

• Continuously evaluate whether stage-gate criteria and artifacts are fit for purpose and recommend changes that improve decision quality, speed, and consistency. 

Innovation Workstream Program Management 

• Manage multiple solution innovation workstreams by developing and tracking workplans, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, risks, issues, communications, and stakeholder commitments. 

• Support cross-functional teams in defining scope, timelines, deliverables, resource needs, sequencing, decision points, and escalation paths for innovation initiatives. 

• Coordinate workstream planning and execution across Product, Solution Development, Commercialization, Enablement, Analytics, Operations, Legal/Compliance, Finance, and customer-facing functions. 

• Develop clear status updates and program views that communicate progress, blockers, decisions needed, upcoming milestones, and risks to the Group Product Owner and relevant stakeholders. 

• Proactively anticipate risks, dependency conflicts, resource constraints, and scope creep; present mitigation options and escalation recommendations to leadership. 

Requirements, Business Case, and Product Lifecycle Support 

• Support development of product and solution requirements, enhancement plans, business cases, and lifecycle recommendations by coordinating inputs from product, strategy, analytics, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders. 

• Help translate innovation strategy, market insights, customer needs, and committee decisions into actionable product plans, implementation requirements, stage-gate deliverables, and roadmap updates. 

• Coordinate operating cost, ROI, risk, readiness, adoption, and performance inputs needed to support innovation prioritization and product lifecycle decisions. 

• Support transition of validated innovation concepts into product roadmaps, commercialization planning, operational readiness, enablement planning, or scale recommendations as appropriate. 

• Ensure service expectations, operational readiness requirements, customer support implications, and risk considerations are documented for innovation opportunities moving toward pilot or launch. 

Stakeholder Communication and Executive Reporting 

• Develop and maintain timely, accurate, and concise reporting on innovation pipeline status, Product Development Committee decisions, stage-gate progress, roadmap updates, risks, issues, and action items. 

• Facilitate stakeholder discussions to build alignment on innovation priorities, process expectations, implementation approaches, dependencies, and next steps. 

• Prepare materials, dashboards, status reports, decision summaries, and executive updates for the Group Product Owner, Product Development Committee, CPS leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders. 

• Use appropriate communication tools and formats to keep stakeholders informed and aligned across complex and interconnected innovation workstreams. 

• Translate complex process, product, and dependency information into clear summaries for both technical and non-technical audiences. 

Continuous Improvement, SOPs, and Process Discipline 

• Develop, maintain, and improve standard operating procedures, templates, process documents, governance tools, communication practices, and stage-gate artifacts supporting the Solution Innovation pathway. 

• Conduct periodic process reviews and lessons-learned sessions to identify successful and unsuccessful pathway elements and apply improvements to future workstreams. 

• Identify opportunities for efficiency, process improvement, documentation quality, tool optimization, governance simplification, and improved stakeholder experience. 

• Implement repeatable program management practices that improve visibility, accountability, decision quality, data integrity, and workflow speed across solution innovation activities. 

• Promote consistent use of program management and product management tools, ensuring information is complete, current, and usable for decision-making. 

Risk, Issue, Dependency, and Resource Tracking 

• Maintain risk, issue, dependency, and decision logs for solution innovation workstreams and governance processes. 

• Partner with stakeholders to identify mitigation plans, escalation needs, and alternative approaches when timelines, resources, scope, or dependencies are at risk. 

• Track resource needs, capacity constraints, and cross-functional dependencies that impact workstream progression or stage-gate readiness. 

• Use judgment and discretion in escalating issues to the Group Product Owner and relevant leadership when innovation progress, stakeholder commitments, or decision timing are at risk. 

• Ensure innovation workstream risks and dependencies are visible in roadmap, backlog, and committee reporting. 

Compliance and Other 

• Ensure solution innovation governance, documentation, and workstream processes comply with applicable company policies, privacy/security expectations, legal/compliance standards, and documentation requirements. 

• Perform related duties as assigned.