Product Owner

Unum is a company of people serving people. As one of the world's leading employee benefits providers and a Fortune 500 company, Unum's financial protection benefits help protect more than 36 million working people and their families from the financial impact of illness or injury. Unum's two distinct, but similarly focused US businesses - Unum US and Colonial Life - are each a market leader in making disability, life, accident, critical illness, dental, and vision insurance accessible in the workplace. Headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Unum also has significant US operations in Portland, Maine and Baton Rouge, Louisiana - and over 35 field offices nationwide. Colonial Life is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina with over 40 field offices nationwide.

General Summary:
Unum is looking for a Product Owner with an Agile mindset, to collaborate closely with IT and business stakeholders to drive capability development in support of excellent customer experience.

A product owner is responsible for gathering feedback, making decisions, and ensuring that the voice of the customer is heard and acted on throughout digital product design and the delivery of that product.

This opportunity is working on the Admin Journey - Data Exchange, specifically our DEAR Reports initiative. To be successful in this role, understanding API's, Scrum, ability to manage stakeholders, strong influencing abilities and cultivating internal relationships is preferred.

Additionally, you will be partnering with our offshore business partners in India, as well as our team in Ireland, so the ability to communicate with a geographically dispersed team in different time zones is critical.

The Product Owner may be accountable to a Senior Product Owner if needed based on the scope and complexity of their assigned roadmap.

Responsibilities:

• Contributes to business case development and cost benefit analysis within their product scope
• Ensures IT delivery roadmap is aligned to the strategic annual product roadmap
• Informs business around opportunities and executes on the product roadmap
• Sets product and adoption KPIs with business partners and derives cascading metrics down through to the development and delivery activities
• Maintains holistic understanding of relevant client personas and has the ability to engage with internal and external clients to test assumptions as well as being able to understand and articulate to the Agile Team the client needs.
• Translates client needs from discovery into product backlog work items
• Ensures on an ongoing basis that client feedback is represented and influences prioritization, trade off, and roadmap decisions
• Builds and maintains an updated and prioritized product backlog
• Accountable to ensure the backlog represents technical bodies of work required for long term technical integrity.
• Accountable for creation and ownership of product backlog work items including acceptance criteria (Features, User Stories)
• Fully engages and leverages methodologies outlined in relevant product area. Eg. Customer Journey, Agile Methodologies, Program Execution Framework ie. Program Ways of Working
• Maintains a set of tools and skills to elicit client insights and feedback. Eg. Focus Groups, Surveys, use-ability Sessions, Interviews, Use of Prototyping
• Maintains set of tactical agile techniques in relation to work decomposition, planning, estimation, backlog tooling, status reporting
• Builds and maintains current internal business expertise relevant to area of product development
• Engages in industry analysis of trends, technology, and market advancements
• Demonstrates active engagement and sharing of practices in Product Owner forums
• Ensures operational readiness efforts are in place as new technology-driven capabilities are moved to production environments.
• Participate in the design digital adoption strategy with operational leaders
• Track benefit realization on solutions that have moved to production, monitoring KPIs and incorporating feedback in future enhancements in the product backlog
• Leveraging backlog tooling software to provide metrics, status and progress towards deployment
• Track progress of work towards agreed timelines for deliverables to ensure the health and progress of the holistic delivery roadmap. Adjusting and communicating changes to timelines with review of impacts from changes

Specifications:

• Bachelor's degree preferred, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• Strong verbal, written communication and presentation skills, including the ability to translate technical subject matter to nontechnical audiences.
• Demonstrated success in progressive delivery of technical projects.
• Proven ability to lead a team, influence with and without authority, challenge the status quo, and create a competitive advantage for the organization.
• Product Owner certification preferred (PSPO and/or CSPO)
• Proven understanding of product management lifecycle and agile methodologies.
• IT technical acumen to effectively collaborate with architects, designers and all dev ops team members.
• Experience in developing and understanding digital technology roadmaps including identification and understanding of technical requirements.
• Strong interpersonal skills and track record of engaging with customers/ cross-functional stakeholders at all levels, in a wide variety of situations, and demonstrated ability to listen, influence, and relate to customers/stakeholders in their own language.
• Proven ability to help inform leaders in making difficult decisions.
• Creative thinker and problem solver who can confidently express complex ideas in an articulate, concise manner.
• Some experience in negotiation and persuasion skills.
• Demonstrates high levels of ownership and accountability. Self-starter and ability to effectively chart a path forward in ambiguous situations or under a general direction.
• Demonstrates the ability to champion change and support teams through change.
• Able to effectively coach, mentor, and identify and address skill needs and gaps for continuous improvement of self and team.
• Demonstrated results against 'We are Unum' principles.

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~IN1

Our company is built on helping individuals and families, and this starts with our employees. We want employees to maintain a positive balance, which is why we provide access to the benefits and resources they need to invest in themselves. From our onsite fitness facilities and generous paid time off to employee professional development programs, we are committed to helping employees live and work their best - both inside and outside the office.

Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person's race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status.

Company:
Unum

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