IT Product Manager

PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE POSITION:
The IT Product Manager is responsible for the vision and implementation of a specific technology product or products belonging to a brand. Product Managers work closely with various teams to make business decisions and create product strategies that ensure the company’s long term sustainability. In the execution of these strategies Product Managers work with FLG and brand departments to ensure corporate goals are met on time and on budget while client and market needs are met.
The Product Manager works with all relevant stakeholders inside their specific product business or brand to build and enhance products from existing ideas, and help develop new concepts based on industry research and the needs of customers and prospects. A Product Manager possesses a unique blend of business and technical savvy, a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality. He or she must be able to collaborate with non-technical stakeholders and translate their strategic vision into requirements that can be developed by an engineering squad. He or she must be able to live in both the technical and non-technical worlds
A Product Manager conducts market research including working in the field to understand target audience needs and issues, and find innovative solutions for problems. The Product Manager will stay on top of current trends and develop long term plans for the success of their assigned product or brand..
The Product Manager is the champion for the product and must communicate with all areas of the company. He or she will work closely with Architecture and Engineering to define technical requirements
The Product Manager will work with Sales and Marketing Support to define the go-to-market strategy, helping them understand the product positioning, key benefits, and target customers. The Product Manager will also serve as the internal and external subject matter expert for product offerings, working with the sales channel and key clients. The Product Manager is also responsible for the financial sustainability of the product, creating and updating profit and loss documents.
KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:
Team leadership, strategy and planning
● Develop and manage: Develop and manage a project services squad that strives to deliver on-time, to scope and to budget products that range across all technology stacks
● Go above and beyond: Doing everything possible to ensure delighting customers, end users and stakeholders
● Coaching the team: Act as performance coach for the Project Services team, creating a balance with the project's key stakeholders, and the deliverables that are required
● Constant guidance: Guiding the tribes and squads on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values to delight customers.
● Supporting, managing and educating the Project Services team, especially with respect to developing proper user stories; grooming and maintaining the product backlogs; and ensuring the delivery process is adhered to ensure continuous delivery.
● Providing all support to the team using a servant leadership style whenever possible, and leading by example
● To drive the strategic direction of the group’s products taking into account emerging and legacy technologies
● To oversee strategy for both product and bespoke code base platform definition and implementation To strategically decide whether we can inherit existing /support legacy code bases – and how we handle our growing levels of software support
● To devise a tactical plan which can be collaboratively carried out by the team – to implement improvements to our products, services, processes and knowledge sharing within the team
● To plan for team growth considering the blend/level of skills required within team ● To assist the direct report team leads in resourcing decisions
● To review project progress and overview of the performance of all individuals in the respective workstreams
● To facilitate the smooth delivery of all projects, enhancements and support delivered by the team
● To make sure that all team members have the latest in-depth knowledge of all onsite and relevant off site aspects at the heart of all decisions on projects or enhancements that they make
● To facilitate technology and methodology decision making throughout team, including standardization of system architecture, reusable code base development, versions of software tools, best practice, source control and deployment processes
● To have a clear task list and plan for inducting new members into the team and bring them up-to-speed as quickly as possible
● To make sure that all training and support that team members require is delivered internally or externally
Delivery
● Provide support of effective delivery of all projects from and including contract negotiation to official ramp down of project
● Be an advocate of the Scaled Agile Delivery Framework
● Scope and shape the requirements of the Scaled Agile Delivery Framework across the organisation working closely with businesses
● Devise, produce and implement new processes to optimise more effective project management as required and within the framework
● Own the central repository of documentation and processes including the BA Toolkit
● Ensure standardized and relevant document templates are available from a central repository for both the Project Services and business project team members
● Facilitate sharing of best practices through informal communities of action, collaboration and/or formal training sessions to enable a consistent approach across all projects
● Encourage knowledge transfer and lessons learnt activities within the Project Services squad and business project teams to drive continued best practice
Communication and problem solving
● Stakeholder management: Support the backlog and release plan, radiate scrum artifacts to the product owner and team, and keep key stakeholders informed about progress
● Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information regarding upcoming sprints
● To use experience when reviewing and auditing legacy code
● To assist in critical support issues where experience is required to ascertain the issue quickly and to find the more appropriate resolution
● To take control over critical support instances and putting into place the correct escalation and process to manage and resolve issue as soon as possible
● To create a culture of promoting new ideas or up-sell opportunities within the team
● To contribute regularly to discussions regarding internal process and system improvements in order to ensure maximum efficiency across the company. Including suggesting technical solutions to problems
● To instigate cross team ideas and initiatives – to bring products and services together
● To make sure the development team are integrating other team’s services efficiently and that they are offering technical input into how all Fitness and Lifestyle Group services can be delivered and improved
● To strive to ensure that processes and appropriate levels of knowledge are shared between teams