Product Owner – Open Space

Product Owner – Open Space

We have an exciting opportunity within Digital and Data for a product owner, looking after the organisation’s investment in our Open Space product.

The purpose of the Product Owner for Open Space role is to be responsible for maximising the return on the firm’s strategic investment in the Open Space product by promoting a more efficient and increased use of the product functionality and looking to further leverage opportunities to align with other customer facing products and services.

The role will balance time between identifying opportunities to enrich the product feature set with solution delivery relating to the technology, with majority of this delivery time focused on detailed tasks as agreed with the Business/Project teams and where appropriate in accordance with an agreed plan and ordered pipeline of work.

The role requires a strong technical and functional product knowledge of customer facing web applications together with an understanding of product lifecycle management.

The Product Owner role will have accountability and responsibility for driving the strategic product roadmap while also working collaboratively with customers and colleagues across multiple functions to ensure stakeholders are engaged in the process of capturing the ‘what’ and agreeing the order of the ‘do’, ensuring at all times that our product roadmap remains aligned with the evolving corporate business strategy. 

This role sits in the Product team reporting directly into the Product Manager for Advisory, Customer & Communications and marketing. The Product Owner will act as the product expert as being the ‘go to’ for knowledge around the product as well as providing owner guidance on how the existing functionality can better support the business either through training, configuration changes or enhancements to meet requirements that align with the NHSPS strategy.

As part of the Product team, the Product Owner will work together with the other Product Owners to ensure that any changes to their Product are aligned with other NHSPS integrated systems and work collaboratively to drive and deliver a fit for purpose technology landscape.

Key Responsibilities

• Participate in defining the governance framework for enhancement and support delivery, account management, annual charges, changes to bespoke annual maintenance costs, and invoicing.
• Working with the appropriate and necessary stakeholder, Customers and colleagues, act as the Digital & Data owner to review, assess, make recommendations, and ensure the delivery of system improvements that align with the NHSPS Strategy.
• Map business with technical product requirements and produce appropriate documentation for agreed product improvements and bespoke enhancements.
• Visibility, management, and reporting for all Professional Service Requests (GPS) submitted to development teams for product enhancements. (Cost and delivery). Ensure that all changes to maintenance charges on bespoke are correctly fed through to the annual charging schedule.
• Ownership of user access process and definition of roles and responsibilities matrix to ensure Audit Compliance.
• Act as Technology SME to expand Product Analysts product knowledge base and participate in the development of career path to enable growth of excellent service delivery.
• Work in partnership with software suppliers where appropriate, to understand product roadmaps and recommend product enhancements that would benefit NHSPS going forward and could be developed for the standard product driving continuous improvement.
• Play a leading role in the strategic use of the product, identifying and rationalizing new business needs for the product and provide support in developing long-term vision and objectives.
• Demonstrate leadership in driving the adoption of industry trends and emerging technologies in anticipation of new business processes and system enhancements.
• Lead and own the vision for the product supporting Digital & Data leadership with regular written and in-person communications to stakeholder, customers and colleagues with an interest
• Work with the Architecture team to define and ensure that the technology strategy aligns with the product roadmap and the platform needs are identified and understood when discussing new opportunities
• Together with the Training Team assist with the development and delivery of training, focusing on improvement of system adoption and increasing business knowledge
• Support the architecture team in solution development / design workshops involving team members, colleagues and customers
• Lead and participate in appropriate Product forums, periodically defining and presenting architectural steers.
• Participate in the evaluation and design of technical solutions, supporting the development of business cases, and identification / communication of associated risks.
• Work with the product management team on implementation and configuration of system rollouts ensuring capabilities are aligned to business and user needs.
• Participate in acquisition, development, and deployment of other technology and associated third party solutions.
• Other areas of responsibility include life-cycle management, agile working, and operational management

This role will require you to demonstrate the following Experience, Capabilities and Knowledge

• Extensive experience in using the Product or Products specifically outlined against the area of support.
• Previous experience as a product specialist/owner driving product strategy
• Previous experience of customer-facing business processes and products 
• Demonstrable experience of System Administrator experience.
• Experience in different integration systems, technologies, and patterns.
• Experience in delivering products across multiple devices and channels.
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
• Previous experience managing product backlogs and delivery.
• A passion for learning, developing, and gathering new technologies and related tools to introduce to the company.
• Previous experience working in the public sector, FM, and property management industries.
• Self-starter / proactive leader.
• Demonstrate ownership, accountability, collaboration, and shared responsibility.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with high attention to detail and focus on value-add activity
• Ability to think strategically whilst achieving results in immediate area of responsibility.
• Ability to promptly identify risks and escalate.
• Excellent communicator able to communicate at all levels and adopt a flexible & consultative approach.
• Ability to think creatively and exploit business opportunities.
• Ability to produce high-quality technical and service content for the products in the form of roadmaps, technical documents, etc.
• Good analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities.
• Integrity, consistent in their work, and who has clear and visible set values.
• Ability to clearly articulate requirements, approaches and give clear directional steer.
• Ability to conduct research into emerging technologies, trends, standards, and products.
• Able to prioritise tasks in a high-pressure environment, challenge where appropriate and ensure alignment with strategic direction, vision and value of the function/team.
• Knowledge of customer facing web applications and customer transactional portals 
• Knowledge of product and software development practices and lifecycle 
• Ability to understand user requirements and outcomes, identifying challenges and obstacles that need addressing.
• Able to create high quality technical documentation.
• Demonstrated the ability to communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing.
• Lead presentations and facilitate workshops and meetings.
• Risk, governance, and performance management methodologies and frameworks
• Commercial and financial acumen
• Broad understanding of modern people practices
• Agile & Lean methodologies, knowledge of waterfall based delivery is useful.
• Knowledge of FM and property management systems and technology.