The Opportunity:

• Leader of a team of Product Managers who manages a certain Product area, focusing on defining the vision and strategy for their respective product area based on market research, customer and stakeholder needs, company goals and strategy, and market trends.

• Responsible for building the strength of their product team through ongoing skills assessment and development.

Your Impact:

• Product Strategy & Vision

  • Defines the vision and strategy for the product line/program based on market research, user and stakeholder needs, an understanding of company goals and strategy, and by looking at the current state of success of their products.

  • Regularly communicates vision, direction, and progress to development teams, management, and stakeholders, e.g., in Value Stream Leadership Forums or Planning Meetings.

  • Works with portfolio management on which outside requests make it onto the product roadmap and when.

  • Ensures tight integration of strategic and tactical decisions by maintaining regular communication with their Product Managers. The Manager, Product Management ensures that strategic decisions effectively guide tactical ones taken by the Product Manager, as well as tactical insights, such as user feedback on specific features or a slower than anticipated development progress, inform the strategic decisions.

  • Works with associate Managers to prioritize features and capabilities from other work streams/divisions within the enterprise.

  • Proactively prepares recommendations on changes in product priorities leveraging a variety of sources and data and drives decision process.

• People Management

  • Defines goals for team members based on Product/ Technology/ Corporate goals and measures attainment of goals

  • Manages performance of team members through feedback, coaching, and documentation

  • Develops talent through career coaching and supporting development plans

  • Ensures resources are in place and operate effectively

  • Manages conflicting priorities and allocations and escalates as appropriate

  • Monitors work quality, reviews output, and ensures that team members are equipped to successfully deliver the work of their area

  • Provides input into organizational design for discipline/ function and operating model

  • Shares successes with team

  • Guides team members on how to effectively leverage customer data, initiates activities to promote a customer-centric product management approach, and shares customer findings with other teams.

  • Accountable for maintaining compliance-related practices within their team(s)

  • Coaches Product Managers on how to effectively manage their product and stakeholders

• Outcome, Value Contribution, and Continuous Improvement, Agile Development

  • Responsible for the success of their product

  • Defines product KPIs in collaboration with business stakeholder group

  • Facilitates a product development approach focused on minimum viable product

  • Actively leverages KPIs to analyze and improve Product

  • Regularly discusses industry trends with team.

  • Presents product vision to the team, and regularly shares product strategy as the path to achieve this vision. Draws the connection between the actual work and the broader product strategy. 

  • Identifies and removes impediments.

  • Facilitates conversations with leadership and teams on ways to improve velocity, remove barriers and drive outcome.

  • Acts as an advocate for lean product development, is able to spread lean thinking across teams and drives the teams to deploy usable, product-ready software at the end of each sprint.

• Stakeholder Management

  • Works with stakeholders to create buy-in, educate, socialize roadmaps, respond to business needs, and prioritize new features and capabilities. Builds and maintains a global network of stakeholders and subject matter experts and ensure open and frequent communication.

  • Responsible for understanding the considerations and constraints of the various stakeholders and bringing this knowledge into the team.

  • Builds trust among stakeholders that the Product Management team is going to solve their problems and will ensure solutions that work well for them.

  • Visible leader to internal stakeholders – frequently engages with business stakeholders to understand operations, business goals, customer needs and commercial growth strategy and derive and develop product roadmap to enable business strategy

  • Can effectively manage business stakeholders within their product area/ domain and with supporting areas such as Legal, Finance, etc., mediate in case of conflicting needs/ priorities between stakeholders and drive alignment on priorities for Product/ Technology (within their domain) between different parties.

  • Partners with stakeholders to understand business/ customer challenges and is seen by business partners as key resource to drive new developments and capabilities and is expected to possess persuasion and negotiation skills and use them in a tactful and diplomatic fashion. They have the ability to communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization, including written, verbal, and visual communication.

  • Facilitates conversations with external vendors/ 3rd parties to drive product development for their area.

• Product Discovery & Requirements

  • Decides which area of the product to focus on next for product discovery based on product strategy and vision, and business impact. Connects different sources, research results, and KPIs to drive a more focused product discovery process. Effectively leverages team members' strengths to improve results and utilizes senior team members to educate and build up less experienced team members.

  • Leverages product discovery outcomes to facilitate conversations within the team and with stakeholders to align on product direction and priorities

  • Ensures Product Discovery is an integrated process with all team members participating

  • Guides Product Management team in leveraging the appropriate tools and methodologies to effectively evaluate customer needs and assess product ideas

  • Drives strategic decisions on solutions/ external partners to meet business requirements and ensure technical integrity.

What You Bring

• Technical Expertise

  • Possesses broad knowledge of technologies, platforms, processes, and architecture as it relates to their Product area and related areas

  • Possesses strong knowledge of their Product/ Domain.

  • Able to delegate product decision making to appropriate levels in the organization while continuing to provide oversight and guidance

  • Possesses a broad understanding of current and emerging technologies (e.g., what is and what is not possible) and is able to provide advice on process and technology to business stakeholders.

  • Has as broad understanding of the technical landscape concerning the key business areas relevant to their product

  • Demonstrates strong knowledge of systems, applications, and information flow between multiple business areas.

  • Ability to manage projects or initiatives incl. execution on plans, resource management and anticipating and resolving conflicting needs

• Business Knowledge

  • Demonstrates advanced business knowledge to understand interdependencies between business requirements, systems and technologies and assesses impacts on other areas.

  • Knows how technology impacts QRG's broader business goals and strategies and aligns Technology and Product Management goals to these, providing high-level prioritization for maximum efficiency and value.

  • Has advanced knowledge of the strategic plans/initiatives and critical success factors of business units within the realm of their Product area.

  • Understands the relationships and interdependencies of various departments/ functions/ sites and partners with global business leaders to understand business needs, dependencies and impacts to drive priorities.

  • Understands the business impact of different product solutions and can assess and communicate the tradeoffs between business needs, technology requirements, costs, and risks.

  • Understands company’s policies and procedures for addressing People (HR) issues and enforces and/or escalates issues as appropriate.

  • Applies knowledge of key business drivers and the factors that maximize department performance

  • Demonstrates advanced understanding of the retail industry.

  • Maintains an understanding of business plans and strategies of competitors and of the industry in general.

  • Stays abreast of new Technologies and assesses how these could impact their Product.

  • Possesses expert level knowledge of their Product domain/ area, incl. Product strategy, processes, regulations, and interdependencies with other Product areas and business units.

• Business Knowledge – Compliance & Accessibility Knowledge

  • Knowledge of relevant regulations (e.g., SOX, PCI) to act as an advocate for compliance throughout the organization.

• Scope of Complexity

  • Ability to influence direct team as well as influence peer teams interacting with managed team.

  • Ability to influence leaders within and possibly across organizations.

• Communications/ Contacts

  • Ability to leverage internal networks, educate Technology team members on product roles and communicates product vision, market insights and customer data to help team members understand business needs and product priorities.

  • Visible and active leader within their own area.

  • May contribute to areas outside of their own.

  • Ability to establish relationships with key business partners, subject matter experts and business leaders on a global level

  • Understands themself as a customer advocate and continuously builds their knowledge about our customer by joining customer interview, customer panels, analyzing customer research data, etc.

• Agile Skills

  • Possesses strong understanding of the Product Manager function within Agile Development and is able to guide/ coach teams/ team members as it relates to effective Product Management.

  • Knows how the Product Manager function contributes to the success of the team and leverages this knowledge effectively to continuously improve the Product Management practice and create news standards.

Qualifications  

• Minimum Education:  Bachelor’s degree.  

  • Preferred Education:  Master’s degree.

• Minimum Experience:

  • 8+ years of related experience

  • Experience working in supply chain operations, ecommerce, or the retail industry

• Preferred Experience: 

  • Has multiple years of experience serving as a Product Manager within an agile environment.

  • Has worked with Retail Order Management and/or Outbound Transportation technologies.

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