I. Job Summary

The Product Owner is responsible for executing the Operations Optimization and Automation Digitization (CSD), translating field needs into solutions, while delivering business-driven product portfolio vision and value.

The role involves Agile product ownership and is responsible for defining innovative solutions that leverage modern technologies to solve complex real-world business problems, within a specific business domain. The role is responsible for shaping the direction of the product portfolio and will be actively involved in defining key product features that impact the business and its customers. The role will work with cross-functional teams to evolve strategy, architecture, and product go-to-market value. An individual filling this role will be expected to demonstrate curiosity, strong business judgment and comprehensively analyze solution options, considering tradeoffs and potential impacts to products.

II. Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Other minor duties may be assigned.

• Build, maintain, socialize the product roadmap.
• Direct ongoing tactical execution of roadmap deliverables.
• Own strategic investment planning and product lifecycle governance processes.
• Manage P&L for product.
• Drive ideation and hypothesis-led problem-solving to generate step change improvements for operations.
• Own & manage critical product KPIs, including stakeholder communication thereof:
• Time - milestones
• Scope - requirements
• Cost - investment
• Risk - challenges
• Return - value
• Drive end-to-end operational excellence and product resiliency from product delivery through product retirement, extracting maximum value.
• Own product decision-making framework and final approvals for product capabilities, including escalation to senior leadership and cross-product functions, as needed.
• Capture, score, and implement business feature and technical backlog requests, ensuring risk-based prioritization methods.
• Collect, prioritize, and document business requirements and develop project charters to drive project initiation.
• Research industry trends and competitor analyses to inform future product goals / vision and possible commercialization opportunities.
• Instill, reinforce, & coach best practices for SaaS purchases, bespoke tool development, SaaS management, etc.
• Provide oversight, coaching and leadership of product teams, including deliverable reviews, issue resolution, and training.
• Collaborate with other teams and Field management (Area business leaders) to implement and manage programs developed and delivered, as needed.
• Facilitate team effectiveness by answering questions, removing impediments, making decisions, and refining the Backlog for future Sprints.
• Identify known/unmet opportunities for customers.
• Build and develop key customer relationships required to deliver value aligned with the organization's vision.
• Own product increment goal definition and partner with Scrum Masters to ensure they successfully facilitate goals.
• Foster a team-based culture within the workstream and all enabling teams to deliver value.
• Leverage active listening and practice empathy.
• Apply an understanding of how components within the program interact across domains when optimizing value delivery.
• Conceptualize new and creative ideas that push workstream solutions beyond the current state.
• Apply a complete understanding of the product vision to evaluate all viable solution options and creatively determine the optimal path to the desired future state.
• Ability to balance facts and solutions to make intentional decisions that drive value and meet stakeholder and organizational needs.
• Able to clearly articulate a case for chosen product features aligned with the product roadmap, considering all key perspectives.
• Intentionally design opportunities for continuous feedback in driving alignment, incorporating input in future decisions.

A. Business Focus

• Partner with key workstream stakeholders to align product features and solutions with the customer-oriented vision.
• Responsible for driving business outcomes and value delivery as it aligns with the sub-workstream capabilities and customer expectations.
• Own, and define feature scope aligned with the scope of capabilities defined by the Business Product Leader.
• Define and prioritize features as part of the sub-workstream Feature Roadmap in alignment with sub-workstream capabilities.
• Provide the business inputs for the sub-workstream user stories.
• Provide inputs for stakeholder impact assessments to identify gaps in business readiness.
• Responsible for User Acceptance Testing of the scope delivered in a product increment.

B. Digital Focus

• Partner with key workstream stakeholders to align product features and teams with the customer-oriented vision.
• Responsible for planning, discovery, and design of targeted feature user stories aligned with the Business Product Owner on value and scope (including experience research and product design)
• Build, prioritize, and maintain the team user story backlog
• Support Digital in defining product features and backlog
• Responsible for planning, discovery, design, and prioritization of user stories to align with product vision
• Primary stakeholder involved in overseeing the execution of cross-team collaboration and dependency identification for the team during product increment planning
• Collaborate on use of capacity of enabling teams and shared services across program teams

III. Supervisory Responsibilities

The highest level of supervisory skills required in this job is management through one or more managerial levels. This includes:

• Direct supervision of full-time employees including management, team leads and individual contributor positions
• May have indirect supervision of other full-time management and/or individual contributor positions.
• Responsible for leading the work of contractors and consultants.

IV. Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the qualifications necessary to perform the job.

A. Education and Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree (accredited) in computer science or similar area of study, or in lieu of degree, High School Diploma or GED (accredited) and four years of relevant experience.
• Experience: Seven years of related experience (in addition to education requirement).

B. Certificates, Licenses, Registrations or Other Requirements

• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), or equivalent highly preferred

C. Other Knowledge, Skills or Abilities Required

• The ideal candidate will have proven communication and relationship management skills. The candidate will need to balance strong technical product leadership with domain expertise to make the right strategic product decisions.
• Advanced knowledge or skills in one or more of the following also required:
• Strong technology expertise, proven leadership skills, excellent written and oral communication skills, analytical skills, and a strong customer-service orientation.
• Proficient communication skills with a proven ability to synthesize complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences including Senior Executive leadership.
• Ability to manage and deliver several initiatives simultaneously.
• Ability to embrace a growth mindset and work independently.
• Ability to operate in a dynamic and fast-paced environment, adapting to changes in people, processes, and technology while consistently delivering incremental value.

V. Work Environment and Essential Functions

Listed below are key points regarding environmental demands and work environment of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Required to use motor coordination with finger dexterity (such as keyboarding, machine operation, etc) most of the workday.

Normal setting for this job is hybrid in our Houston, TX office.

Benefits

At WM, each eligible employee receives a competitive total compensation package including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance and Short-Term Disability. As well as a Stock Purchase Plan, Company match on Pension, and more! Our employees also receive Paid Vacation, Holidays, and Personal Days. Please note that benefits may vary by site.

If this sounds like the opportunity that you have been looking for, please click "Apply.”

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