ADMS Operations Readiness & Vendor/Defect Management Lead- Only W2

Key Responsibilities

• Operations Readiness & Cutover Lead end to end operations readiness planning for ADMS deployments, including cutover strategy, day one operations support, and hypercare planning.
• Define and execute readiness frameworks covering training, business process redesign, organizational change management, and technology adoption for distribution control centers and field operations.
• Develop and manage Operations Readiness Checklists, RACI matrices, and go live readiness scorecards to track milestones and escalate risks.
• Oversee design and delivery of role specific training curricula for dispatchers, operators, engineers, and field technicians in ADMS workflows and DMS/OMS/SCADA functionality.
• Lead simulation exercises, tabletop drills, and mock go live events to validate operational readiness and identify gaps before cutover.
• Support post go live stabilization, knowledge transfer, and transition to business as usual (BAU) operations.

Defect Lifecycle Management

• Own and manage the full ADMS defect lifecycle intake, triage, classification, prioritization, tracking, resolution verification, and closure across System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), and production phases.
• Establish and enforce defect management governance standards, including severity and priority classifications, SLA adherence, escalation paths, and metrics reporting.
• Chair regular defect triage meetings, driving accountability for defect resolution across vendors, integrator, and client technical teams.
• Maintain defect tracking in tools such as Jira, HP ALM, Azure DevOps, or ServiceNow, and produce executive level defect status dashboards and reports.
• Analyze defect trends to identify systemic root causes and drive preventive actions across configuration, data migration, interface, and functional workstreams.

Vendor & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the primary liaison between the utility client, ADMS platform vendors (e.g., GE, Oracle, Schneider Electric), system integrators, and internal Cognizant delivery teams for technical, operational, and defect related escalations.
• Manage the multi-vendor ecosystem and vendor contractual obligations related to bug fixes, patch delivery, and production support SLAs; escalate noncompliance to program leadership.
• Partner with utility client stakeholders including Distribution Operations, Grid Operations, IT/OT, and Engineering to assess readiness gaps and develop mitigation plans.
• Carefully coordinate test environment issues with infrastructure and IT/OT teams, ensuring defect reproducibility and resolution validation are not bottlenecked.
• Manage stakeholder communications and executive reporting related to readiness status, defect status, risks, and mitigation actions.
• Support go/no go readiness assessments by providing clear, data driven readiness and defect status reporting to program leadership and client executives.