Product Owner, Corporate Applications

The opportunity

The Product Owner is the voice of customers/stakeholders, responsible for defining the overall strategy and direction of a small product with low to medium complexity and scale.
 

The Product Owner of the Corporate Cloud Applications team is a key contributor to Teachers’ Cloud first strategy, through the enablement of SaaS based solutions for business partners across the enterprise.

Who you'll work with

The Product Owner collaborates with stakeholders to understand their business needs, proactively identify opportunities to increase product value, define and prioritize solutions across competing stakeholder interests, effectively communicate roadmaps to stakeholders, set priorities and ensure the delivery of high-quality solutions to stakeholders.  The product owner rallies the team to achieve the vision and strategy of the product by defining the product roadmap, clearly articulating success criteria for new features, and by acting as the voice of the customer throughout the delivery lifecycle.

What you'll do

Leadership Responsibilities:

• Acts as a driver of “what” needs to be delivered for the business by providing direction and guidance on behalf of business stakeholders.

• As part of the agile squad, acts as the decision maker around priority and delivering value

• Bring product thinking and an incremental delivery mindset to the Agile squad’s work

• Collaborate with Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters & other Product Owners to advocate, foster and spread agile thinking, culture and behaviours in the organization

Product Responsibilities:

• Makes customer engagement a central aspect of the work, effectively develops relationships, forums, and approaches which enable efficient and candid feedback on delivered work as well as upcoming priorities

• Effectively prioritize at many levels with competing customer and stakeholder needs

• Represents value from a customer’s perspective within the team through a clear vision, prioritization at high and detailed levels, and clarifying the work for team members

• Prioritize work through a well-organized roadmap, release strategy, and backlog of features & user stories, and clearly communicating what needs to be done

• Support the business case development in collaboration with relevant stakeholders ensuring their product is funded and set up for success

• Take ownership of the outcome from the perspective of the customer both in realizing the expected impact/outcome and in how users are adopting the solution

• Develop strategies and plans to enhance the partnership with business stakeholders in evaluating the benefits, costs and risks associated with solutions and services

• Facilitate product demos to empower Squad members with real-time feedback from customers

• Define and clearly communicate acceptance criteria for output based on business needs

• Determine approach to source information required, and uses product management techniques such as personas, story mapping, validated learning, product health models, OKRs, etc.

• Strategize on relevant outcome objectives and targets with leaders and customers based on the squad’s mandate, using them to frame decisions and tracking progression toward them

• Regularly engage with the Squad to offer feedback on work-in-progress, clarify requirements, and answer questions

What you'll need

• 3+ years’ experience as a Product Owner, cultivating agile principles and values and applying these principles to working with or in Agile teams 

• Strong interpersonal skills, coupled with excellent communications and people-interaction skills, leading to co-creating collaborative solutions and opportunities for individual and organization growth

• Ability to understand, empathize and bridge multiple perspectives e.g.  Senior Leadership and technical specialists

• Experience in sourcing, negotiating contracts/terms and implementing Cloud/SaaS based technology solutions. Familiarity with IT concepts, methodology and vocabulary is an asset

• Ability to advise and invite alternate viewpoints in different stakeholders, including Senior Leadership

• Ability to manage expectations and communicate appropriately with business stakeholders while making decisions about competing priorities

• Demonstrated experience with building or evolving products in a complex, matrixed organization, effectively managing competing priorities.

What we’re offering

• Pay-for-performance environment that offers competitive salary and incentive

• Numerous opportunities for professional growth and development

• Comprehensive employer paid benefits coverage

• Retirement income through a defined benefit pension plan

• The opportunity to invest back into the fund through our Deferred Incentive Program

• A flexible/hybrid work environment combining in office collaboration and remote working

• Competitive time off

• Our Flexible Travel Program gives you the option to work abroad in another region/country for up to a month each year

• Employee discount programs including Edvantage and Perkopolis

At Ontario Teachers', diversity is one of our core strengths. We take pride in ensuring that the people we hire and the culture we create, reflect and embrace diversity of thought, background and experience. Through our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy and our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), we celebrate diversity and foster inclusion through events for colleagues to connect for professional development, networking & mentoring.  We are building an inclusive and equitable workplace where our talent is respected, accepted and empowered to be themselves.  To learn more about our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, check out Life at Teachers'.

How to apply

Are you ready to pursue new challenges and take your career to the next level? Apply today! You may be invited to complete a pre-recorded digital interview as part of your application.

Accommodations are available upon request ([email protected]) for candidates with a disability taking part in the recruitment process and once hired.

Candidates must be legally entitled to work in the country where this role is located.

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Functional Areas:

Corporate Services

 

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