Description

Product Owner - 12-18 month contract

Position s ummary

Individuals in this role provide the following services to the organization: 1) l eadership and driving successful execution of Agile S crum and Kanban teams; 2) i mprovement of processes and procedures for the Product Engineering division ; and 3) development and maintenance of tools, techniques, and standards pertaining to the SDLC .

Responsibilities

• Fulfill the role of a Product Owner (different than a Product Manager) within the Scaled Agile Framework for on-shore or off-shore teams on all sizes of initiatives.
• Lead and facilitate the work of Agile teams (including ceremonies) by working with stakeholders to clarify delivery objective s and ensure the cross - functional Agile team members can accomplish these objectives.
• Create Program Increment, Sprint and R elease plans; ensure that plans receive appropriate review, authorization , and visibility through Agile ceremonies and other stakeholders .
• Ownership and strong stewardship of agile team(s) backlog , story definitions and refinement ; including rank order across competing priorities (roadmap, maintenance and defects, etc ...)
• Be an advocate and voice across the enterprise for agile development team(s) .
• Assist teams in evaluating and establishing their capacity to inform pro gram plans.
• Track project/team inter-dependencies and coordinate efforts across disparate teams with other Product Owners or stakeholders .
• Timely approval of stories to ensure quality control at the team level and to ensure technical and functional integr ity of our products.
• Track and forecast project progress, activity and effort; communicate effectively through multiple channels to sponsors and key stakeholders.
• C ontinuous and early assess ment of project risk factors , change control and recommend ation of courses of action to mitigate risk.
• P articipate in developing, maintaining and evolving standards, tools, templates and documented processes for process improvement and project governance.
• Perform other duties as assigned to ensure the success of the team and the organization.

Skills and a bilities

• E xperience in scrum and /or Kanban processes and protocols , a must ; Proven foundational knowledge of standard project management best practices , a must .
• Experience with the Scaled Agile Framework is desired .
• Strong l eadership skills with proven ability to successfully manage and facilitate functional and/or cross-functional teams , including off-shore teams .
• A bility to build working relationships and work effectively with a variety of cultures and varying personalities.
• Well-developed communication skills, including proven ability to transform complexities into clear, concise written communications for stakeholders and development teams.
• Ability to distinguish milestones and measures critical to project success and translate these into me aningful management information.
• Ability to balance competing demands for project scope, time, cost, risk and quality; combined with ability to manage several projects concurrently with a sense for organizational priority .
• Ability to remain cool under pressure and demonstrate competence when challenged .
• Experience in successfully , respectfully and logically n egotiati ng with stakeholders .
• Ability to facilitate and control meetings and discussions where disparate points of views need to be voiced and acknowledged .
• Ability to track at the detail level and some experience plan ning several steps ahead.
• Proficiency in a broad range of agile project management and roadmap tools such as Jira, Target Process , Confluence and Aha .
• Must be able to perform the physical and intellectual requirements of the role, with or without accommodation .

Education and e xperience

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, or similar discipline preferred
• Minimum two to three years of practical delivery experience in the area of Agile project management with demonstrated results leading an agile team.
• Strong preference for experience in the technology industry .
• P roject management process experience including project prioritization, estimating, project planning, scheduling, risk and issue management .
• Experience in vendor relations and contract negotiations for program/project outsourced services and products desired .
• Scrum Certified Product Owner desired; experience with creation of project portfolio management tools and design of dynamic, data-driven web applications highly desirable.