A successful Product Manager seeks to unearth problems, understand user needs, and is comfortable with ambiguity and moving forward with imperfect information. This role has visibility of all levels of product development, from design to UX to agile product delivery to product marketing and more. A person in this role is passionate about influencing and leading product enhancements that make a difference for clients and users. A qualified Product Manager should have a willingness to learn and deepen personal knowledge of the assigned product area(s) to understand how changes to the features and functionality may impact the greater solution. This individual will exhibit listening skills, technical awareness, clear written and verbal communication, and attention to detail. This individual will also serve as a key liaison between the Product/Engineering team and the operational and client partnership stakeholders. This role involves working collaboratively with Engineering, Sales, Product Management, Product Marketing, UX/UI designers, and other internal teams including but not limited to Client Partnership and Operations.
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Ability to translate "technical speak" into laymen's terms for communication of appropriate information back to stakeholders
- Is aware of architecture/functionality and tech stack used for product development
- Understands SQL enough to query the databased to troubleshoot/gather information (as applicable/needed.)
- Learn and demonstrate a key understanding of underlying data structure for the product line/workstream a plus (as applicable/needed)
- Ability to write simple to medium-complexity SQL scripts as required for data updates within the system a plus (as applicable/needed)
- Should have working knowledge of the tools used by the team, especially JIRA, Confluence and Teams
- "Catches" and responds to ISD tickets/work requests related to workstream/product line/feature area in a timely manner
- Responsive to account/operations teams and other stakeholders
- Demonstrated ability to get things done in a rapidly changing environment
- Streamlines efforts to bring concepts from ideation to refined requirements to “approved” by stakeholder
- Serves as primary writer and refiner of epics and user stories related to assigned product workstream/feature set and does so in a clear and concise manner
- Includes acceptance criteria and use cases in User Stories (as applicable/needed) with minimal re-work necessary due to gaps or ambiguity in requirements
- Grooms backlog regularly
- Able to review defect tickets and re-create as well as assess for full provision of information and push back to submitter or augment independently as necessary
- Assess impact of defects identified during regression testing in order to determine level of priority to address in current vs future sprint & advise Sr. Product Manager/other leaders accordingly
- Manages P1 internal communication, facilitates war room, gets ball rolling to stop the issue
- Ability to capture critical information from meetings and team discussions and possess the skills to summarize/simplify
- Creates/maintains repository and serves as gatekeeper to ensure capturing and recording of documentation is prioritized
- Should be aware of the business overview of Ansira and is comfortable with the business requirements of the product and projects assigned
- Should be a Product area SME - Learn and be able to provide deep knowledge of the product in order to understand how changes to the features and functionality may impact the greater solution and how product and projects worked contribute to the success of Ansira as a whole
- Can identify/articulate product solutions leveraging existing technology/feature set(s)
- Willing to offer help/support to others as needed without compromising completion of assigned work
- Provides guidance on best practices to preserve product line/workstream/application's "big picture" in light of individual client or feature enhancement requests
- Proficient story teller
- Manages/plans roadmap, prioritization, project execution and stakeholder relationships
- Prepares properly for PTO/OOO time, ensuring work is completed in advance or adequate coverage plans are in place
- Ability to discern what requires escalation and what does not
- Escalates personal issues/blockers in a timely manner to the correct "resolver"
- Escalates work blockers as appropriate to the next level to ensure timely resolution/remediation
- Participate in estimation/story pointing sessions (as applicable/needed)
- Estimate tasks taken on by self during a sprint (as applicable/needed)
- Should proactively clarify questions or doubts with the team to avoid any surprises/ implementation gotchas
- Facilitates user acceptance testing for new features or enhancements
- Acts as key point of contact for meeting follow-ups
- Should be aware of the product vision and Team goals and reviewing frequently to ensure complete understanding and support of them/progress toward them
- Adheres and contributes to continuous improvement of best practices across entire product team
- May assist Sr. Product Manager and/or Sr. Director, Product Manager with prioritization for sprint planning and sequencing of projects/initiatives, as assigned
- Demonstrates user empathy and user experience sensibilities
- Can effectively plan, prepare, and present a user story to the development team, representing the “what” and the “why” behind the business need, as assigned
Required Skills/Abilities:
- Practices professional office etiquette
- Active listening skills, positive & friendly attitude
- Strong verbal and written communication skills – and ability to adapt communication style and content with correct level of detail for intended audience
- Professional grammar, tone, and volume with colleagues and clients
- Treats others with respect, trust, and dignity
- Excellent time management, accountable to attendance/meeting schedule
- Demonstrate through actions a collaborative, One Ansira culture
- Effectively prioritize workload
- Identify needs/temperament of customer (internal or external)
- Proven technical competence (MSFT suite)
- Strong attention to detail, multitask without mistakes
- Versatility across core program activities
- Demonstrates commitment/accountability to team (OT, meeting goals) and places team priorities before self
- Eagerness to learn and desire to achieve continuous improvement
- Demonstrates initiative, self-awareness, and resilience.
- Exhibits a high level of confidence & independence.
- Operate with a sense of urgency.
- Proactive thinking/planning
- Approaches change positively.