Senior Product Owner

Job description

Job responsibilities

In this role, you are accountable for:

1. The successful delivery of user centred products, including owning the product vision and roadmap from inception through to delivery of the product(s) covering all stages of the product lifecycle, owning at least one product yourself and providing oversight across a small portfolio of products within the NHSBSA.

2. You will effectively manage competing priorities, adapting products and services where needed to meet both internal and end users needs, ensuring your product team builds the right things at the right time to maximise user and business value. Work with internal and external customers to analyse the needs and align the product roadmap to strategic goals.

3. Using product management principles and approaches, you will capture and translate user needs into deliverable outcomes for your end user. You will define the minimum viable product and define, agree and amend priorities where appropriate and be responsible for acceptance criteria.

4. You will monitor service quality and set appropriate OKRs in collaboration with interested parties and communicate the achievement and performance of your product to stakeholders. You will use qualitative and quantitative data to make the best decisions about the relative priority of work to improve the product or service (often with incomplete information or degrees of uncertainty involved) and work to continuously iterate near and longer-term plans for your team, ensuring these are suitably open, flexible and adaptive to change.

5. Working closely with operational delivery teams, youll find solutions to overcome operational constraints to deliver successful products across a number of different services. You will ensure products meet the needs of operational teams as well as end users throughout the products entire product life cycle, implementing best practice in new product or service development.

6. Line management responsibility for several NHSBSA Product Owners. Encourage, support, mentor and manage performance of colleagues to ensure role requirements are met and professional development of Product Owners is supported.

7. You will use your subject matter expertise to understand and communicate constraints to manage expectations with colleagues in policy, operations and DDaT as well as regulatory, financial and legal colleagues.

8. Play a key role in facilitating the Product Owner Community to ensure respective product and service teams understand what each other are working on to ensure synergies and opportunities are taken advantage of.

9. Act as an ambassador for NHSBSA products internally and externally and as the primary contact for queries related to the products you are responsible for.

10. Act as an initial point of escalation for key product decisions across a defined section of the NHSBSA portfolio, providing support and direction for the Product community and the wider business.

11. Support Product Owners within a section of the NHSBSA, to ensure every product or service has a clear vision with objectives aligned to the real needs of users and the strategy of the organisation, ensuring the product and service vision and goals are aligned.

12. Develop strong networks across a range of stakeholder organisations and within the NHSBSA and will promote strong integration of digital improvement activity.

13. Working with key stakeholders and management teams, you will ensure products are delivered consistent with NHSBSA approaches and values, including relevant governance frameworks, and report on project process, priorities, risks and solutions. Using your networks and relationships, you will also ensure user feedback is regularly taken on board and they are informed of ongoing improvements.

14. Support the Service Owners and leadership team to deliver on their priorities and actively participate in engagement with internal and external stakeholders to assess what is possible through product delivery whilst being accountable to sponsors for the delivery of user-initiated change.

15. Actively engage in user research sessions to get first-hand feedback from users and take a data driven approach to prioritisation across multiple services and products.

16. Manage delegated budgets as required, with responsibility for the day-to-day finance work for the project.

17. Ensuring that outputs are complaint with DHSC and NHSBSA policies, in addition to complying with statutory UK legislation and directives.

18. Able to demonstrate knowledge and experience working to CDDO service standards and able to mentor and coach others on best practice.

19. Be accountable for your own personal development needs in order to be fully equipped to meet current and future management and organisational needs, as well as support development of others within the product community.

20. Dealing with highly complex and sensitive information where you will need to influence and persuade Senior Leaders and internal/external stakeholders to take an appropriate approach in relation to difficult and contentious issues.

Person Specification

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to make informed decisions based on user need, available technology and value for money.
• The product lifecycle and how products in different stages of it benefit from different design and development approaches.
• Professional standards and practices relevant to digital public health services (e.g. NHS Service Manual, Government Service Standard & Manual, Technology Code of Practice).
• Demonstrable detailed understanding of the variety and complexities of digital contexts and can design services to meet them, including the wider digital economy and advances in technology.
• High level ability to understand and identify problems, analysing and helping to identify the appropriate solution. You can classify and prioritise problems, document their causes and implement remedies.
• Ability to translate vision into deliverable goals (OKRs).
• Driven and self-starting.
• Analysis skills.
• Sensitivity and tact towards vulnerable users who you will be interacting with at times.

• Leading and coaching staff in ways of working, professional development and standards.
• Common technology standards - including software, security, privacy and accessibility standards.
• Contemporary organisational management practices.
• The wider private/public/third sector digital landscape - including public sector procurement and contracting frameworks or supplier management.

Experience

• Significant demonstrable experience and understanding of user-centered design, technology and data perspectives.
• Experience of applying an agile methodology and mindset to all aspects of your work, using an iterative method and flexible approach, ensuring product delivery teams and other stakeholders understand and deliver against user needs and overall objectives.
• Experience of utilising and driving product insight and other data to evaluate needs and priorities, whilst using your understanding of user centric design, technology and data perspectives, to ensure that products benefit from relevant innovations, remain future proof and aligned to moving technology and best practice, focused on user needs, continuous improvement, efficiencies and return on investment.
• Significant experience of working within digital products and projects.
• Experience of developing and maintaining a product roadmap which is fit for purpose and meets organisational requirements.

• Detailed knowledge of NHS and NHSBSA services would be desirable.
• User-centred service design practices and methodologies for public-facing, business-facing or internal services and applications.
• Line management and recruitment experience.
• Experience coaching and mentoring staff in agile ways of working and product management.
• Able to identify areas for improvement in ways of working and product management practices across a service areas and suggest and implement appropriate solutions.

Qualifications

• An appropriate recognised management qualification equivalent to a degree qualification and/or significant relevant equivalent experience.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.
• Evidence of agile and/or product management training or certification.

• Post- graduate qualification in relevant discipline.
• Product Owner Certification from a recognised provider.
• CDDO service assessor training.
• Agile Certification from a recognised provider.
• Professional/accredited qualification in Change Management Certification.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House / Home Based

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/what-we-do/work-us