Special Projects Manager - Strategic Solutions (Innovation)

Special Projects Manager – Strategic Solutions (Innovation)

The Special Projects Manager – Strategic Solutions (Innovation) facilitates achievement of Douglas County's innovation and modernization objectives by ensuring that efficiency tools and approaches are applied responsibly, effectively, and in alignment with County priorities. The position partners with departments, County leadership, and key stakeholders to identify high-value opportunities to streamline operations and implement sustainable improvements that elevate service delivery, empower staff, and create measurable impacts. This position translates business needs into actionable solutions, and coordinates execution from discovery through sustainment, thereby enhancing staff productivity, improving employee retention rates and citizen satisfaction and reinforcing a culture of continuous improvement.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support the execution of the County's enterprise innovation strategies through facilitation, automation and AI-enabled initiatives, application of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and internal training.
• Assist with the reduction of manual steps and rework to streamline workflows in departments and offices that may also include external partner agencies where overlap or dependency exists.
• Research, evaluate, and stay current on AI tools and emerging technologies relevant to public-sector services, advising County leadership and departments on potential applications, risks, and implementation considerations.
• Partner with departments to understand operational challenges, conduct business and process analysis, and identify AI- and technology-enabled solutions; guide approved initiatives from problem definition to solution implementation and through sustainment with measurable outcomes.
• Plan, organize, and lead complex, cross-department improvement initiatives and special projects, either independently or through ad hoc teams, addressing technical, operational, legal, and change-management considerations.
• Maintain visibility into AI- and automation-based initiatives being launched in other jurisdictions by tracking adoption, outcomes, risks, and dependencies and providing regular updates and recommendations to County leadership.
• Represent the County in meetings, working groups, and intergovernmental or partner forums related to AI, innovation and process improvement, when requested.

Additional Preferred Technical and Systems Abilities:

• Design and lead enterprise-wide trainings and workshops that instruct on Lean Six Sigma methodology and tools and deliver other targeted, related and practical curriculum.
• Design, build, test, and maintain Power Automate cloud flows to automate business processes, including file ingestion, approvals, notifications, data transformations, and system integrations.
• Deploy applications to streamline departmental workflows, replace manual processes, and improve data accuracy and user experience.
• Create and maintain Power BI reports and dashboards, including data modeling, measures and visual design to support operational and executive decision-making.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders and IT staff to translate functional requirements into technical designs and solution architectures.
• Perform systems analysis to understand data sources, file structures, Application Programming Interfaces, security constraints, and integration points across Microsoft 365 and other enterprise systems.
• Implement error handling, logging, and monitoring for automated solutions to ensure reliability, transparency, and auditability.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and optimize existing improvements, apps, and reports to improve performance, scalability, and maintainability.
• Document solutions, configurations, and operational procedures to support sustainment, knowledge transfer, and continuity.
• Support user adoption through light training, documentation, and iterative enhancement based on feedback.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in public administration, industrial systems engineering, information technology, data/AI-related disciplines, or a related field.
• Five (5) years of experience in program or project management, business analysis, process improvement, technology enablement, or AI/automation initiatives.
• Experience working with AI tools and/or workflow automation is preferred.
• Equivalent combination of education and experience demonstrating competence will be considered.

Certifications, Licenses & Registrations:

• Successful completion of a criminal background check.
• AI-, automation-, or business-analysis-related certifications preferred.
• Project Management certification preferred; Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, or Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) preferred.
• Lean Six Sigma certification or demonstrable understanding of the application of the tools and methodologies are highly desirable.