Product Owner

Position Summary:

Develops new software product concepts, designs, and/or enhancements to existing product capabilities that reflect business value/market needs and corresponding user requirements. Coordinates and works in collaboration with Development, Sales, Customer Support, Client Services, Customers, and 3rd Party Partners. Creates, manages and maintains prioritized backlogs for 1 or more Agile Scrum teams to streamline the execution of product development priorities while maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of the features and components. Will typically take priority and strategic direction from a Product Manager but would tactically be required to work independently to initiate and drive complex tasks within the job function. Champion the customer experience and advocate for their needs throughout the product lifecycle.

A Day in the Life:

• The Product Owner position is responsible for the development and success of a product and involves starting with a daily Scrum meeting to address blockers and ensure alignment. Prioritize the backlog, engage with stakeholders for feedback, and conduct market research.
• Collaborating on sprint planning, refining user stories, and participating in reviews and testing. Documentation updates and prepares for retrospectives, along with continuous learning to stay updated on industry trends and best practices.

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• Drives strategic goals by developing and delivering Program Increment Objectives for 1 or more Scrum teams that support the Product vision
• Conducts research and develops a good understanding of the customer's needs, new technologies, trends in the market, and competitors.
• Develops product ideas and concepts into detailed requirements documents, functional specifications, and design mock-ups; and is further able to translate and represent those into clearly defined backlog epics and stories based on priority.
• Participates in all phases of the product development lifecycle, including research, analysis, design, testing, and integration of products as well as the introduction of products to the market.
• Acts as a strong support to Business, Development, Sales, Support and Service managers through effective problem solving, collaboration, and communication.
• Member of a cross-functional team that translates customer needs and technology directions into clearly defined and prioritized product backlog items/stories and deliverables.
• May participate in the creation of documentation or user guides for new products.

Competencies:

• Experience/familiarity with Agile development processes
• Consistently maintains and refines a thorough understanding of User, User Need, Product Functionality, Product Value and Market fit
• Ability to lead and conduct research to define user need, product solution, project scope and product requirements
• Ability to clearly document project scope, product solution, product requirements and stories
• Ability to communicate and work with internal business stakeholders, SMEs and product team members and leaders to gain consensus, clarity and go forward direction on project scope, product solution, product requirements and stories
• Ability to work with development teams to create a well-defined and estimated backlog of stories representative of approved project scope, product solution and product requirements for delivery
• Ability to work with development teams to deliver upon project plan, PI and sprint commitments
• Ability to manage backlog prioritization/trade off negotiations that occur within project, PI, and sprint planning and delivery; ensuring coordination, communication and alignment of expectations between product, development and stakeholder/SME teams on deliverables
• Ability to maintain project plans and manage communications regarding and updates thereof to stakeholders, SMEs, product team and development team collaborators
• Ability to coordinate, communicate and execute release, beta program and go to market activities in conjunction with product leaders and collaborators
• Ability to effectively escalate issues impacting the product, project plans, deliverables and/or working operations to managers, collaborators and leadership

Preferred Education and Experience:

• 6+ yrs of total experience with minimum of 3+ years of professional experience as a Product Owner or related roles within the software development industry.
• B.A./BCA/MCA degree or related work experience
• Experience working within Agile and SCRUM methodologies
• CSPO/Agile certifications a plus • Experience working within scaled agile (SAFe) methodology a plus