Product Owner

Remuneration:	cost-to-company
Location:	Johannesburg
Remote work:	Some remote work allowed
Education level:	Degree
Job level:	Management (Snr - Executive, 5+ yrs)
Type:	Permanent
Reference:	#PO14082024
Company:	RecruitU

Product Owner | Hybrid (Johannesburg Northern Suburbs) | Permanent

Job purpose

The product owner plays a critical role in ensuring the successful development and delivery of high-quality products. They have a deep understanding of customer needs, strong business acumen, and effective communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional teams. They are responsible for defining and prioritizing product features, guiding the development process, and maximizing the value delivered to customers and stakeholders on a team level. They collaborate with business owners to incorporate feedback from end users and develop an ideal user experience. They are accountable for building and executing solutions roadmap in alignment with the business objectives and strategy. 

Job responsibilities

• Contribute to the product vision in collaboration with the product manager
• Define the scope to be delivered in the iterations in alignment with the Product Vision 
• Act as a partner between business owner and development teams for the product
• Support business owners in producing the best product through domain knowledge, business insight, understanding product technology and technical dependencies 
• Lead iteration review meetings to share iteration performance and latest product feature
• Contribute to ART backlog prioritisation, and co-ordinate across the ART during PI Planning
• Act as an ambassador for the delivery roadmap of the product and ensure that the right solutions are built in the right way through collaboration with executives, senior stakeholders across business and technology teams and the agile team
• Contribute to solution design plans, product vision, roadmap and growth opportunities for the product or component owned by the Agile team 
• Collaborate with development teams to deliver innovative solutions with an appropriate sense of urgency
• Have a clear understanding of the prioritized product features to be delivered between senior stakeholders, negotiating requirements and priority as necessary
• Advocate the customer needs and priorities to the team in order to ensure the voice of customer is present in all sessions and delivery is aligned to customer needs
• Attend and contribute to agile ceremonies and PI planning to enable the Agile team to work and plan effectively to deliver value
• Collaborate with Chapter COEs to clearly understand and adopt their practices, principles, and ways of working 
• Contribute to and engage with product owner CoE to advance the practices and quality of product owners in the organisation    
• Coach, mentor and support other product owners in the organisation, act as a role model for leading practices and contribute to thought leadership on Agile topics
• Lead Agile Team members to work according to the company’s and industry best practices.
• Defining of a product vision for products in alignment with the organisational goals and objectives
• Stakeholder Engagement – Collaborating with stakeholders to gather requirements, manage expectations and ensure alignment with business objectives and solutions 
• Prioritising backlog – working closely with stakeholders to prioritise backlog bases in business value, customer needs and technical feasibility 
• Managing product backlog – maintaining and prioritizing product backlog, continuously refining it based on changing priorities, evolving business needs and other factors
• Collaborating with development and design teams – working closely with the design and development team, providing clarity on requirements, answering questions and ensuring the delivery of high-quality product/ solutions
• Iterative development – embracing the iterative and incremental approach to product development, allowing rapid feedback loops and continuous improvement 
• Identify potential technology and other partners outside of the product team to improve the product 
• Monitoring market trends – keeping abreast of industry trends, competitor offerings and emerging technologies to inform product strategy and roadmap 
• Measuring success – defining key performance indicators and success metrics to evaluate the performance and the impact of the products based on data driven insights
• Communicating and aligning with stakeholders and agile team (squads) – communicating progress, updates and challenges to stakeholders and ensuring transparency and alignment throughout  
   

Essential qualifications - NQF Level

• Advanced Diplomas/National 1st Degrees

 Preferred qualification

• B.Comm/ IT 

 Preferred certifications

• Scaled Agile Framework certification (Leading Safe, Safe PO/PM, DevOps)
• Entry level BA certification

 Minimum experience level

• At least eight years’ management experience; senior level product development or product management or product owner 

Types of exposures

• Banking 
• Agile 
• Continuous improvement best practices 
• Business process improvements 
• Business analysis

Technical/professional knowledge

• Knowledge and understanding of Agile (SAFe)
• Basic understanding of the UX and CX principles 
• Proficiency in using product management tools such as Jira, confluence for managing backlogs, user stories and sprint planning. 
• Data Analysis – ability to understand data analytics concepts and tools to analyse user feedback, track KPIs and make data driven decisions 
• Technical Literacy – while not necessarily required to be a developer, the individual should understand technology concepts, architectures and terminology relevant to digital products which can facilitate communication with development teams and inform decision making. 
• Quality Assurance – understanding of QA processes, 
• Experience in translating and enabling business strategies and objectives into business benefits. 
• Experience in development and implementation of digital products 

Behavioural competencies

• Leadership determination
• Thriving in ambiguity
• Coaching
• Ignite passion
• Digital acumen
• Technical/professional knowledge and skills

Skills:

• Knowledge and understanding of Agile (SAFe)
• Basic understanding of the UX and CX principles 
• Proficiency in using product management tools such as Jira, confluence for managing backlogs, user stories and sprint planning. 
• Data Analysis – ability to understand data analytics concepts and tools to analyse user feedback, track KPIs and make data driven decisions 
• Technical Literacy – while not necessarily required to be a developer, the individual should understand technology concepts, architectures and terminology relevant to digital products which can facilitate communication with development teams and inform decision making. 
• Quality Assurance – understanding of QA processes, 
• Experience in translating and enabling business strategies and objectives into business benefits. 
• Experience in development and implementation of digital products 

Posted on 14 Aug 17:15, Closing date 13 Oct