As a Project Manager on Learfield’s Data Strategy & Analytics team, you will serve as the operational backbone of a high-performing team building Fanbase — our proprietary data and analytics platform that delivers strategic fan insights across the enterprise. Fanbase aggregates data spanning ticketing, sponsorship, digital and social channels, commerce, and beyond, enabling our organization and school partners to more deeply understand fan engagement with college athletics — and to translate that understanding into stronger marketing efficiency, expanded commercial opportunities, and more meaningful fan relationships.
In this role, you will own the discipline and rigor that keeps sprint execution on track, maintain a healthy product backlog, facilitate agile ceremonies, and ensure that day-to-day delivery work remains clearly connected to broader product roadmaps and business outcomes. You will partner closely with colleagues across engineering, analytics, and product, serving as a steady force for clarity, accountability, and forward momentum. This role reports to the Vice President, Data & Analytics.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
Sprint Execution & Backlog Management
- Own the day-to-day health of the Data Products sprint board in Azure DevOps, ensuring tickets are current, clearly described, and accurately pointed
- Facilitate biweekly sprint planning, backlog grooming, end-of-sprint reporting, and retrospective sessions
- Maintain a well-structured, prioritized backlog in close collaboration with Product Managers, ensuring the team always has a clear and ready queue of work
- Track sprint velocity, burndown, and scope changes — surfacing issues and blockers proactively rather than at the finish line
- Partner with Product Managers and engineering to enforce consistent story pointing standards
Planning & Roadmap Coordination
- Collaborate with Product Managers to ensure initiatives and epics are translated into well-defined, actionable stories at the appropriate time
- Maintain forward visibility into upcoming work, flagging when stories are not sprint-ready or when dependencies remain unresolved
- Participate in initiative-level planning conversations alongside Product Managers and leadership, helping to document outcomes, owners, and timelines
- Prepare biweekly leadership status updates and sprint reviews that clearly connect completed work to measurable business impact
Cross-Team and 3rd Party Coordination
- Collaborate with other Project Managers to align on process standards, share best practices, and coordinate cross-team dependencies
- Support leadership in tracking the work of external engineering partners within Azure DevOps, ensuring their contributions are story pointed, sprint-tracked, and visible across the team
- Assist in facilitating vendor-related status updates in coordination with the Director of Engineering and other team leaders
- Cultivate effective working relationships across engineering, analytics, and product functions to keep work moving and communication clear
Accountability and Continuous Improvement
- Maintain a retrospective log each sprint in coordination with Product Managers, documenting what slipped, root causes, and corrective actions
- Help reinforce a team culture in which deadlines are treated as commitments and blockers are surfaced early — with proposed paths forward
- Identify opportunities to streamline processes, reduce friction, and continuously improve team effectiveness
- Stay current on evolving project management tools and methodologies, including AI-powered workflow solutions, and bring innovative ideas to the team
Minimum Qualifications:
- 1+ years of experience in a project coordination, project management, or operations role
- Strong organizational acumen with the ability to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously without losing detail
- Clear, confident communicator — written and verbal — comfortable engaging both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Solid grounding in agile and scrum methodologies, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, story pointing, and retrospectives
- Experience with project management or work tracking platforms such as Azure DevOps, Jira, Asana, or equivalent
- Exposure to product road mapping tools such as Aha or similar platforms is a plus
- Genuine interest in AI tools and their potential to improve team efficiency and workflow
- A solution-oriented mindset — someone who asks "how do we make this happen?" and works constructively through obstacles
- High attention to detail, strong follow-through, and a collaborative working style
- Genuine curiosity about data, analytics, or technology
- Background in sports or collegiate athletics is a plus, though not required
Physical Requirements:
- Ability to sit or stand at a desk for majority of day.
- Ability to use hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, keyboard and mouse.
- Ability to talk, hear and communicate clearly in person and via phone/video conferencing.
Learfield offers a full spectrum of benefits for eligible employees including Medical, Dental, Vision, Health Savings Account, Life Insurance and Other Insurance Plans, Flexible Paid Time Off (minimum 10+ days annually), including Parental Leave, 20 Paid Holidays, 401(k) + Match, and Short/Long Term Disability. Leave benefits are consistent with state and local laws, including the Colorado Health Families and Workplaces Act.
