Cognos Planning and Performance Management Lead

Description

Assurant seeks an experienced Cognos Planning and Performance Management resource to join its team responsible for the design, delivery, and support of Assurant's substantial and growing Performance Management application inventory. This highly qualified resource will be responsible for all aspects of the development lifecycle from analyzing and deeply understanding business and technical requirements, through ongoing operational support for the solution. The preferred candidate must be a selfstarter, independently seeking opportunities to increase value to Assurant. This individual is highly motivated and serviceoriented, and independently advances their technical knowledge to the highest degree in order to give Assurant's Performance Management practice a competitive advantage. The ideal candidate will have deep project and support experience to draw from when recommending and implementing Cognos Performance Management standards and best practices. Full technical management of large projects during all project phases will lead this person to deliver on time and on budget. The best candidate will be able to engage customers on business topics, communicating technical concepts into nontechnical terms. Accommodating the customer's needs while providing leadership, technical guidance, and mentoring to others is an important role of this individual.QualificationsKey Accountabilities Develop new and enhance existing Cognos Planning (Contributor and Analyst) applicationsSupport existing production Cognos Planning (Contributor and Analyst) applicationsDevelop procedures to administer Cognos Planning (Contributor and Analyst) applicationsIdentify and validate software and infrastructure components required to implement technical solutionsPrepare and review technical and logical design artifactsSubmit solutions for review for compliance with best practices and standardsDevelop processes to automate tasks in Contributor and Analyst, building processes to monitor those tasks Contribute to enhancing and/or optimizing department support processes and proceduresLead and guide internal quality assurance testing activitiesResolve development and production support issues of moderate to high complexity or riskProvide systems administration support for Cognos Planning or BI applicationsWrite reports using Cognos Planningbased data sourcesLearn and adhere to established Assurant change management processesCreate and sustain open communication with customers and stakeholders by learning the underlying business processesQualificationsMust have 5+ years experience developing Cognos Planning applications in Contributor and Analyst from the ground up in an individual and team setting with version 7 up through a minimum of version 8.2 Additional experience with version 8.4 preferredExperience supporting customers in a virtual, mixedmatrix Corporate I/T environment is preferredDemonstrated ability to create and interpret Cognos Planning technical requirements and design documentsAbility to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and assignments of moderate and high complexity, working tenaciously to meet or beat deadlinesKnowledge of quality assurance testing procedures, processes and techniques employed across various business and technical application platforms and environmentsMust be able to apply analytical and critical thinking skills to Cognos Planning application, technical, and process problems of high complexityAbility to collect information to ascertain the root cause of a complex issue and make timely decisions when recommending corrective actionStrong knowledge of data access tools and SQL languagesEffective oral and written communication skills