Associate Product Owner

Partners with product managers, business owners and stakeholders, and project teams to deliver strong product solutions while reducing backlog and managing the prioritization of workflow in order to meet strategic business needs and deliver successful outcomes. Represents business stakeholders to gather, understand, analyze, document, refine and communicate business needs so that development teams can build effective solutions. Leads cross-functional teams to quickly and consistently deliver customer value based on product vision and roadmap while acting as Product Owner for one agile release train car.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

• Leads, collaborates with, and motivates cross-functional teams and agile release train resources to develop, execute, and release product solutions in alignment with product vision and roadmaps. Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed.
• Provides business leadership to the development teams and sets clear expectations around acceptable deliverables, including deciding appropriate incremental release dates, adjustment of priorities, deadlines and validation of metrics for methodology and business controls. Outlines and prioritizes work based on backlog, business value and conveys strategic vision to team members.
• Works closely with management, business partners, and other Product Owners to ensure solutions deliver on product priorities while meeting strategic mission demands. Ensures stories and features have clear acceptance criteria which is understood by the team and signed off by the stakeholders.
• Identifies, influences, and leads business stakeholders and SME’s while engaging all internal stakeholders through regular information exchange sessions. Manages business outcomes, enables benefits monitoring, and manages communication.
• Collaborates with the product management team to define features and continually refine and mature the backlog, focusing on delivering against the themes, strategies, and evolving value delivered to the customer. Keeps internal and external stakeholders informed of changes to release dates or content.
• Works with team(s) to deliver features for epics while creating, approving and prioritizing user stories on the backlog to drive iterative value. Collaborates with their team and across teams to define and implement improvement stories that will increase the velocity and quality of the product. Participates in planning, demonstrations, reviews, acceptance of stories, retrospectives and program ceremonies.
• Identifies users, collaborates with the team to create and maintain high level user stories/cases, and develops and prioritizes functional and non-functional requirements for new or revised features and enhancements. Determine acceptance criteria, description of job to be done and benefit hypothesis.
• Monitors business outcomes and how work is progressing towards completion of the feature/epic and communicating impacts of delivery challenges with stakeholders. Collaborates with both team members and stakeholders in making necessary adjustments in prioritization, prioritizing the effort to fix root causes, and resolving issue impacts which may include descoping/deselecting of other work.
• Works with the business and system delivery teams to identify and mitigate risk. Escalates issues and develops and recommends appropriate solutions.
• Ensures the transition to operations is seamless, including oversight and delivery of needed training, training documentation, marketing materials and sharing deployment communication with all stakeholders.
• May or may not lead a team of direct reports.

ABOUT YOU:

• You help promote a culture of diversity and inclusion within the department and the larger organization. You value different ideas and opinions. You listen courageously and remain curious in all that you do.
• You are able to work remotely and have access to high-speed internet.
• Ability to serve in the Product Owner role for 1 or more Agile Release Train cars. Conceptual knowledge of the SAFe framework, roles and processes within the framework and the way they collaborate together as a system.
• Knowledge of the insurance industry, operational business processes, and how technology relates to business as well as conceptual understanding of different technology and domains (cloud, mainframe, client server, web, portal, SaaS, Enterprise Architecture, etc).
• Bachelors’ degree in business, project management or information technology or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience in business and/or project delivery.
• Ability to utilize strong leadership, communication and collaboration skills to provide guidance and direction, influence, and build collaborative relationships across business partners, support areas, and vendors.
• Ability to support and/or actively contribute to community of practice through training and collaboration.
• Sound judgment in evaluation of criteria for achieving objectives and results, translating strategic differentiators and communicating business driven strategies to all levels within the organization.
• Conceptual knowledge of change management practices and the ability to apply these concepts with assistance.
• Excellent time management, prioritization and organization skills while meeting set standards for project management, scheduling, current and future skill investment needs, and strategic initiative delivery.
• Highly effective conflict negotiation and problem resolution skills.
• Strong analytical/quantitative skills and comfort with data-driven decision making while translating metrics into business decisions.
• Ability to work independently on highly complex efforts to include multi-year journeys which may involve multiple teams

VALUABLE EXPERIENCE:

• Experience in vendor management.

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU:

• A diverse workplace where associates feel a sense of belonging.
• An organization that feels like a small, close-knit community and has the strength of a Fortune 500 company.
• Tuition reimbursement, training and career development.
• Comprehensive benefits plan that includes medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance.
• Flexible spending accounts for healthcare and childcare needs.
• 401(k) plan with a 2% company contribution and 6% company match.
• Competitive pay with an opportunity for incentives for all associates.
• Flexible work schedules with a healthy amount of paid time off.
• For more information regarding available benefits, please visit our Career Site.
• Salary Range: $81,360 – $100,000.
• Pay commensurate with experience.