Lead Product Owner

Role Overview

Working as part of the LHH IT Team, the Lead Product Owner is responsible for managing a team of Product Owners and oversee the Product Development of LHH candidate, colleague and customer web portals.

The role of Lead Product Owner is critical to the success of the company by delivering products that are market differentiators for purchasers of LHH services and provide a world-class experience for users (both candidates and LHH colleagues).

It is essential for the Lead Product Owner to understand the Product Platform strategy and RoadMap. Taking high-level Product RoadMap inputs from the Product & Innovation team, the Lead Product Owner will use their knowledge of the LHH Product Platform to co-ordinate and assign their team members to specific platform capabilities, ensuring that the LHH strategic Product RoadMap is delivered, whilst ensuring that features are developed to allow re-use across different applications within the LHH Product platform.

The Lead Product Owner will also guide the Product Managers through processes that are required to secure additional funding where demand exceeds development capacity.

The Lead Product Owner will act as a mentor to the Product Owner team, guiding them on AGILE principles and prioritisation techniques. They will also propose any training for Product Owners so that the team works as an effective unit and individual team members become skilled AGILE Product Owner practitioners.

Having accountability for the effectiveness of the AGILE Product development process, the Lead Product Owner will initiate process changes and enhancements as and when necessary.

Where needed, the Lead Product Owner will act as a Product Owner, breaking down high level Ideas into Epics and Features in a Product Backlog. They will proactively manage the Product Backlog and will determine the Epics and Features to be prioritised for inclusion in development SPRINTs as part of the Product Development 'factory' process.

Using a 'Minimum Viable Product' approach to prioritisation, the Product Owner will provide clear guidance and direction to AGILE development teams by evaluating business value that will be delivered versus the effort required. The Product Owner will have continuous collaboration and involvement in the development lifecycle and will be responsible for educating Business Analysts on the strategic objectives so that they can also help ensure that User Stories are developed with the appropriate outcomes and 'definition of done' defined.

The Lead Product Owner will collaborate with many teams and key stakeholders within IT and the wider LHH business, including Product & Innovation Teams, Business Analysts, Solution Architects, Developers.

Reporting Relationships:

- Reports directly to: Global Head of LHH IT, Leadership Development & Product

- Direct reports: 4 Product Owners (2 internal, 2 contract)

Key Accountabilities

* Understand LHH's strategic objectives and Product 'vision', as defined by the Product & Innovation teams

* Collaborate with Product Managers in order to create products that deliver strategic business objectives and respect the strategic and technical integrity of the LHH Product platform

* Provide critical inputs to help secure project funding, defining scope, preparing the business case where required and following LHH/Adecco processes

* Collaborate with Product Managers to understand their Strategic RoadMap and Product objectives

* Assign their team members to be responsible for specific Capability areas of the LHH Product Platform

* Provide guidance and training as needed to Product Owners in their team to help them develop into skilled AGILE Product Owners

* Break down Product RoadMap Ideas into Epics and Features in a structured Product Backlog

* Manage Product Backlog and prioritise items for development based on business value, complexity, setting sprint, release, and backlog priorities

* Maintain healthy backlog so that development teams have strong pipeline of items ready to develop (2-4 SPRINTs ahead)

* Solve product-related problems, complete trade-off analyses make decisions and provide direction on Feature priority and scope to keep projects on track to meet business commitments

* Create and develop Epics and Features to inform the Agile software development team who are building the product features

* Collaborate with Business Analysts and Solution Architects to develop, define and refine User Stories

* Participate in all AGILE ceremonies to answer questions, solve Product-related problems, make decisions and guide SCRUM team where needed

• SPRINT Planning; Story Refinement; Daily Stand Ups (as needed); Showcases; Retrospectives

* Accountability for delivered Product, its' quality and the satisfaction of internal stakeholders and customers

Required Experience & Characteristics

* Extensive experience in AGILE product development environments

* Deep understanding of AGILE process and methodologies

* Deep understanding of Minimum Viable Product with marketable features

* Experience creating, maintaining and communicating a Product RoadMap

* Experience managing a team of Product Owners

* Disciplined approach to Product Development process

* Broad technical awareness of technologies used in the Product

* Strong track record of successfully delivering large consumer-facing products/projects in a cross-functional enterprise environment

* Strong project management and process discipline

* Ability to coach and mentor others on agile best practices

* Creative, strategic thinker

* Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills

* Attention to details; active listener

* Excellent communication skills

* Excellent organisational and time management skills

* Strong analytical, problem-solving skills

* Possess a fundamental understanding of end-to-end customer experience integration and dependencies

* Ability to extend UX designs into wireframes in support of new Feature development

* Ability to facilitate User Story Mapping techniques in support of User Story decomposition