Harvard Medical School is seeking a Director of Technology Communication & UX Strategy responsible for creating standards and overseeing strategies which ensure HMS students, faculty, and staff have a seamless and predictable way to access IT resources, assistance, just-in-time information, and learning modules. This role acts as the customer advocate and voice for improvements in technologies and IT processes across IT and sets the bar for how a service is delivered and communicated to the HMS community. The role will improve availability and user awareness of round-the-clock self-service resources, training, and information to minimize wait times for support.
The Director of Technology Communication & UX Strategy will create a vision and strategy for optimizing a user's experiences, and improvements of existing experiences to enhance user engagement in various areas, including web, mobile, desktop, hardware interfaces, physical environments, and person-to-person interactions. They will drive requirements gathering, execution, and completion of enterprise-wide projects. The Director will serve as the lead service owner for the IT user experience at HMS. They will partner with peers in IT leadership to set the direction for internal operational improvements and drive the gathering and analysis of user data.
Reporting to the Associate CIO, Strategic Service Delivery and Design, the Director will be responsible for:
Staff Management and Leadership: Responsible for strategic oversight and daily management of HMS IT organizational communications, UX, and web teams, ensuring alignment with IT goals and smooth project execution. Leads goal-setting, team development, and manages workloads to ensure cohesive delivery of critical IT services and initiatives.
Strategic Leadership: Leads the development and execution of IT communication and UX strategies, driving long-term engagement goals for HMS IT. Partners with senior leadership to shape transformative IT projects that support institutional objectives.
Technical Leadership: Serves as the technical lead for IT communications, overseeing systems integration, UX/UI design, and digital tools like CMS platforms. Guides web development teams and ensures technical execution of communication and user experience initiatives.
Cross-Organizational Leadership: Acts as a cross-functional leader, aligning IT communications with broader organizational goals and fostering collaboration across teams in HMS IT. Represents HMS IT in university-wide initiatives, ensuring seamless, data-driven improvements in service communications.
Core Duties:
Develops and maintains UX standards and guidelines for HMS IT uniformly across all system applications as a mechanism to transform the customer user experience in partnership with HUIT technical standards.
Designs and implements training standards, programs and materials to educate the HMS community on IT systems, tools, and best practices.
Serves as UX subject matter expert by educating all IT stakeholders around the topic of improving the "front end" customer experience and the importance of making it as seamless as possible; Leads change management efforts related to UX initiatives.
Develops and executes the methodology for reporting UX goals and investments by establishing data driven analytics/key metrics which will help anticipate future needs.
Designs and facilitates collaborative UX training/workshops and suggests it to the development teams, marketing user experience as a guiding principle across IT.
Partners with distributed IT members in HPC, HSDM, and Wyss to implement UX best practices that may be adopted by the broader community.
Discovers and document product requirements, identifying data integrations and user interactions between systems.
Partners with ITSM leadership to ensure knowledge, release, incident, and Major Incident processes are appropriately supported.
Basic Qualifications
Minimum of 7 years' post-secondary education or relevant work experience
Supervisory experience
Additional Qualifications and Skills
Minimum three years demonstrated highly specialized knowledge of a specific technology
Knowledge of information technology applications, processes, software, and equipment
Demonstrated team performance skills, service mindset approach, and the ability to act as a trusted advisor
Solid verbal/written communication skills
Knowledge of system integration across all IT platforms
Ability to conduct needs assessments and user research
Problem solving skills while optimizing data and systems for best possible outcomes
Track record of successful user research experience
Working Conditions
Completion of Harvard IT Academy specified foundational courses (or external equivalent) preferred
Additional Information
The health of our workforce is a priority for Harvard University. With that in mind, we strongly encourage all employees to be up-to-date on CDC-recommended vaccines.
Please note that we are currently conducting a majority of interviews and onboarding remotely and virtually. We appreciate your understanding.
The Harvard Medical School is not able to provide visa sponsorship for this position.
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Benefits
We invite you to visit Harvard's Total Rewards website (https://hr.harvard.edu/totalrewards) to learn more about our outstanding benefits package, which may include:
Paid Time Off: 3-4 weeks of accrued vacation time per year (3 weeks for support staff and 4 weeks for administrative/professional staff), 12 accrued sick days per year, 12.5 holidays plus a Winter Recess in December/January, 3 personal days per year (prorated based on date of hire), and up to 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents who are primary care givers.
Health and Welfare: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits, disability and life insurance programs, along with voluntary benefits. Most coverage begins as of your start date.
Work/Life and Wellness: Child and elder/adult care resources including on campus childcare centers, Employee Assistance Program, and wellness programs related to stress management, nutrition, meditation, and more.
Retirement: University-funded retirement plan with contributions from 5% to 15% of eligible compensation, based on age and earnings with full vesting after 3 years of service.
Tuition Assistance Program: Competitive program including $40 per class at the Harvard Extension School and reduced tuition through other participating Harvard graduate schools.
Tuition Reimbursement: Program that provides 75% to 90% reimbursement up to $5,250 per calendar year for eligible courses taken at other accredited institutions.
Professional Development: Programs and classes at little or no cost, including through the Harvard Center for Workplace Development and LinkedIn Learning.
Commuting and Transportation: Various commuter options handled through the Parking Office, including discounted parking, half-priced public transportation passes and pre-tax transit passes, biking benefits, and more.
Harvard Facilities Access, Discounts and Perks: Access to Harvard athletic and fitness facilities, libraries, campus events, credit union, and more, as well as discounts to various types of services (legal, financial, etc.) and cultural and leisure activities throughout metro-Boston.
LinkedIn Recruiter Tag (for internal use only)
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Department Office Location: USA - MA - Boston
Job Code: I1659M IT User Experience Mgt V
Job Function: Information Technology
Work Format: Hybrid (partially on-site, partially remote)
EOE Statement: We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions, or any other characteristic protected by law.
