Product Manager

A Product Manager is responsible for ensuring that a product is of high quality and delivers value. They manage their products through various phases of the product lifecycle, from discovery, development and build, to live running. They balance the goals of the organisation with the needs of end users, and the skills of the product team to scope and build the right products and prioritise how to iterate them over time. Additionally, they may be involved in recruiting and managing personnel within the product team, ensuring they hire the right individuals that are supported, and developed.

The successful candidate will join the dynamic CDPO-VOA team, playing a pivotal role in shaping and delivering the Local Authority (LA) portal product and the new Welsh Valuation Tools Product. As one of three dedicated Product Managers with responsibility for the council tax products, you will be part of a collaborative group driving innovation and service excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

• Set the product vision, strategy and scope: Define how the product will work to support the organisation or service’s goals and set the scope for what the product will initially do as an MVP, to how it will continually improve or the organisation and end user needs change for a large product or service.

• Stakeholder management:Engage with stakeholders to understand their goals from the service and product, secure their buy-in for the product vision and roadmap, and maintain good working relationships, including managing negotiations over the scope and timelines for product development.

• Collaborate with multidisciplinary product teams:Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team, which could include user researchers, service designers, business analysis, and software engineers, to shape and build the product.

• User Insight Integration:Work with performance analysts and user researchers to gather customer insights on products for iteration and improvement.

• Develop and maintain the roadmap prioritise the order in which high level features and functionality is built and released, based on what is most valuable to build first, and communicate this through road mapping. Get buy in for the roadmap from key stakeholders and maintain the roadmap, prioritising and adding enhancements to the product over time to continually improve the product.

• Develop and maintain the backlog: Identify the team tasks (“user stories”) to build the functionality on the roadmap and create a backlog of user stories. Implement the relevant processes such as sprint planning or kanban, so the team is regularly working through the backlog to build and release features and maintain the backlog to a high-quality standard.

• Build and maintain products to a high-quality standard: Collaborate with colleagues such as designers, user researchers, BAs or engineers to create products that are highly reliable, usable, and accessible for users with accessibility needs, in line with the government service standards.

• Track and improve product performance: Product managers should be able to define how the product will support the organisation’s goal, how that success will be measured (by defining the objectives and key results), and measure progress against these. They should be able to identify improvements and iterations based on feedback to make products more successful.

• Option Evaluation:Collaborate with area leads to assess development options for products or services, including high-level financial implications.

• Community Engagement:Actively participate in the product management community of practice through initiatives, sessions, talks, or activities that help other product managers.

• Support and develop other product managers: this can be through line management, coaching or mentoring more junior product managers or supporting peers.

Candidates who are offered the role will be judged as performing successfully if:

• they are regularly and sustainably delivering product features to the timelines initially negotiated

• if stakeholder satisfaction is achieved and alignment around the product vision and roadmaps obtained.

• if the product is meeting quality standards

• and finally, if they are positively contributing to both their teams and the wider profession community.
  
  

Essential criteria (skills and qualifications):

• Demonstration of strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including experience of building and maintaining positive stakeholder relationships

• Experience of leading a product team or project team to deliver its stated outcomes.

• Ability to define and adapt product scopes based on new insights.

• Experience of understanding problems within a service, product or process, and finding a positive solution to resolve the issue.

• Experience of being able to prioritise work based on what is valuable to do first and getting buy in from stakeholders for any associated project plans/ rollout plans/ roadmaps.

• Experience in backlog management and prioritisation.

• Ability to collaborate with other professions and skillsets, particularly in digital product contexts. Skills in accessibility compliance and the ability to ensure products meet necessary standards.

• Research and analytical skills to assess user feedback and integrate insights into product development.