Continual Service Improvement & Innovation; CSISubject Matter Expert; SME

Job Description

The ITSM Continual Service Improvement & Innovation (CSI2) SME is the program’s accelerator for measurable progress. You will own the CSI operating model, turning data from ITSM, observability, security, and Fin Ops into a prioritized improvement backlog and run a predictable cadence of pilots that move the scorecard. You’ll standardize how improvements are proposed, tested, funded, and scaled: define baselines, set clear targets (SLOs/XLAs and cost-per-unit), run A/B or time-boxed trials, and publish results in plain language.

In a multi-vendor SIAM environment, you’ll align partners to common metrics and ensure innovations land safely through change control, compliance, and training so gains persist.

This is a contingent posting, expected to start in August, 2026

You will replace ad-hoc “good ideas” with a disciplined engine that delivers results quarter after quarter. By linking Voice-of-Customer feedback, incident/problem trends, and unit-cost data to a transparent backlog, you’ll focus effort on what matters most to Veterans and staff: fewer disruptions, faster recovery, simpler requests, and clearer communication. You’ll establish a pilot rhythm covering automation of top runbooks, AIOps for noisy services, right-sizing and storage tiering, and change-risk reduction, that will show objective deltas before enterprise rollout.

The outcome is visible on the shared scorecard: availability up, MTTR and change failure down, ticket deflection and first-contact resolution up, forecast accuracy within plan, and total cost per unit trending down without compromising security or compliance.

• Education
  :
  Bachelor's Degree. In lieu of a degree, an additional four years of related experience required
• Experience
  :
• 10+ years in leading IT service improvement, reliability engineering, or service management programs at federal or Fortune-500 scale; 3+ years in multi-vendor/SIAM environments.
• Demonstrated delivery of measurable innovation improvements (e.g., MTTR −20–40%, change failure ≤5–10%, ticket deflection +20–30%, forecast accuracy ≥95%, verified cost savings) using ITIL 4 CSI, Lean/Six Sigma, and SRE practices.
• Hands‑on ownership of problem management, knowledge management, and executive reporting/QBRs; experience running pilot‑then‑scale innovation programs.
• Familiarity with federal standards and guardrails (NIST RMF/CSF, Zero Trust/TIC 3.0, M‑21‑31 logging) and how to embed them in day‑to‑day operations.
• Technical skills
  :
• ITSM & Analytics:
  Advanced Service Now (reporting, CSDM/CMDB, problem, change, catalog), KPI/OKR design, and executive dashboards in Power BI/​Tableau.
• Observability & SRE:
  Comfortable with telemetry signals (logs/metrics/traces), SLO/error budgets, synthetic/RUM monitoring, incident timelines, and post‑incident reviews.
• Automation & AIOps:
  Experience prioritizing and implementing SOAR/ITSM runbooks, Chat Ops/virtual agent intents, and AIOps correlation for alert noise reduction.
• Process Improvement:
  Value‑stream mapping, process mining, queueing basics, and change‑risk controls (progressive delivery, pre‑prod contract tests).
• Financial Linkage:
  Partner with Fin Ops/TBM (Apptio or equivalent) to quantify unit economics, track variance, and validate savings; basic SQL/Excel for data wrangling.
• Compliance by Design:
  Translate control requirements into policy‑as‑code gates and auditable workflows that generate evidence automatically.
• Security clearance level
  :
  Public Trust
• Skills and abilities
  :
• Plain‑Language Storytelling:
  Turn telemetry and finance into “so‑what” narratives for executives, technical teams, and non‑technical audiences; write crisp one‑pagers and change notes.
• Facilitation & Influence:
  Lead cross‑tower workshops, align vendors to shared outcomes and OLAs, and drive decisions quickly with documented owners and dates.
• Experimentation Mindset:
  Define baselines and success criteria, run safe pilots, and scale only what moves the metrics; comfortable with A/B and time‑boxed testing.
• Change Leadership:
  Apply Prosci/ADKAR (or similar) to adoption; ensure training, knowledge articles, and comms are in place…