Product Owner - Life at Horizontal Talent in Golden Valley, Minnesota

Job Description:

Job Description:

• We are in the process of building out and delivering on a backlog comprised of features for the In force Annuity operations teams.


• The work spans across multiple areas and requires coordination across delivery teams (product configuration, integrations, digital for example). In force is defined as everything occurring post-issue on an annuity contract, policy administrations, benefit payout, death claim, accounting, tax forms and feeds, and customer communications.

Examples of work include:

• Correspondence and other customer communication output


• Changes to the system User Interface (business or production configuration requires partnership and coordination with other delivery teams and external vendor)


• Production support triage and fixes for defects and production incidents


• Tax features - tax testing, tax form builds out and test (requires partnership and coordination with other delivery teams)


• Feature delivery - partial Roth conversion solution, UI (User Interface,) role changes for AML (Anti Money Laundering), Secure Act changes, Inherited IRA solution for example


• Business-related enhancements - could require product or business configuration or changes to base code.


• Finance and accounting related configuration and validations


• BPM tool updates for task routing

Team Methodology: Agile / Scrum

Team Makeup:

• Product Manager, Product Owner, Scrum Master, Enterprise Architects, Developers across multiple capabilities, Quality Assurance, Business Analysts, Business Process Analysts, Product Calculation Analysts, and external vendor partners.

Product Owner:

• The Product Owner is a member of the Agile team who serves as the customer proxy responsible for working with the delivery team, Product Management, and other stakeholders - including other POs (Product Owner) - to ensure stories are defined and prioritized in the team backlog.


• You will articulate and determine the vision, benefits, and roadmap for the In force Annuity product. You will oversee and approve the work throughout the entire development life cycle including design of the product life cycle.


• You will collaborate with prospective users, and across multiple delivery teams to understand needs and translate them into product requirements, user stories, and sprint/iteration plans.


• You will be a leader and liaison between the product team and end-users for risks, issues, feedback, and improvement. Accountable for overall project delivery.

Team Delivery:

• Empowers the team to determine flow of work in alignment with team level priorities


• Creates and verifies stories are in line with the program vision and scope; accepts or rejects completed stories in partnership with the team.


• Ensures the team is aligned to the Program Increment Objectives, and Iteration goals are clearly defined and communicated.


• Helps remove or escalate obstacles to Product Management (tactical)


• Meets regularly with Product Management to keep stakeholders informed on how much incremental value has been generated.


• Works closely with Product Management to plan and manage Program Increments


• Collaborates with Product Owners across other Agile/Scrum teams to ensure system integrations, configuration, and testing across multiple teams is considered and validated.


• Works across teams to identify and understand dependencies and ensures tight sequencing of work.


• Engages appropriate business partners to ensure the team has direct understanding for story development.


• Works closely with external vendor to manage timelines and deliverables.


• Refines team features and user stories in the backlog, ensuring estimates and story points are understood and accurate ahead of PI planning.


• Understands impacts and trade-offs related to dynamic and ever-changing priorities.

Customer Voice & Product Expertise:

• Works closely with teams to refine stories and acceptance criteria to ensure they deliver a complete product to market.


• Answers the team's questions during development and testing, serving as a proxy for the customer.


• Responsible for involving appropriate partners to ensure acceptance criteria has been met.


• Provides deep product expertise and ensures the product is built in alignment with the product vision.

Critical Skills and Experience:

• Strong soft skills, can communicate effectively at all levels.


• Proactive


• Negotiation skills


• Stakeholder management


• Decision making


• Able to influence without authority.


• Self-motivator / driver


• Self-organizer


• Maintains a solution focus, facilitating "here's how we can" versus "here's why we can't" mindset.


• Financial services experience strongly preferred.


• Experience working with annuity products strongly preferred.


• 4+ years as PO (Product Owner)


• SAFe certified

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