Description

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate with product development engineers to track and communicate design, development, support, and maintenance issues and solutions.
• Identify, document, and report design, reliability, maintenance issues, and software bugs.
• Gather and consolidate feedback from customers and field staff.
• Coordinate with field support specialists and customers to resolve product issues and expand product usage.
• Answer customer and field support questions related to product integration and infrastructure.
• Support product implementation and customization activities.
• Manage and communicate software change requests from customers, vendors, and internal teams.
• Track and support resolution of software problems, including documentation, escalation, and customer communication.
• Collect, document, and maintain product functional requirements and provide recommendations.
• Support major product installations and customizations.
• Participate in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) activities, including acceptance criteria, test strategies, plans, and approaches.
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders, development teams, testing teams, customers, and field support teams.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience as a Lead Product Owner.
• Bachelor's degree is not required, but is preferred.
• Strong experience in business analysis, including identifying business needs and recommending solutions that deliver stakeholder value.
• Extensive decision-making and critical-thinking experience.
• Extensive communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Extensive experience managing software change requests.
• Working knowledge of software engineering, software development methodologies, product integration, and software design practices.
• Working knowledge of software problem management, issue tracking, resolution, escalation, and customer communication.
• Extensive experience with software product business knowledge, including product requirements, product vision, customer usage, installations, and customizations.
• Extensive experience with User Acceptance Testing (UAT), including acceptance criteria, test planning, test strategies, and end-user involvement.

Core Competencies

Business Analysis

• Analyze business value and functions.
• Establish prerequisites for business analysis.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, development, and testing teams.
• Document business cases, requirements, timelines, and resources.
• Apply appropriate business analysis methodologies and tools.

Decision Making & Critical Thinking

• Evaluate assumptions, alternatives, and historical decisions.
• Assess potential impacts of decisions.
• Analyze and synthesize relevant information.
• Advise stakeholders on alternatives and recommendations.
• Apply consultative, consensus-based, or appropriate decision-making approaches.

Communication

• Communicate effectively across technical and business audiences.
• Adapt presentations and documentation to the intended audience.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
• Influence and persuade stakeholders when necessary.
• Maintain clear, focused communication.

Software Change Request Management

• Estimate costs and resources associated with change requests.
• Define responses to non-standard or unsupported requests.
• Develop change-request processes and templates.
• Evaluate affected components, risks, resources, status, and costs.
• Manage the overall software change-request process.
• Research tools and techniques for monitoring product effectiveness.

Software Engineering

• Understand product integration across multiple platforms and systems.
• Work with software packages and components.
• Understand software development methodologies, activities, and deliverables.
• Develop and maintain structured feature, function, planning, and scheduling documentation.
• Understand software design practices and technologies.

Software Problem Management

• Track and resolve software and product issues.
• Document resolution progress and communicate updates to customers.
• Work with issues involving other products or vendors.
• Follow established problem-reporting, resolution, notification, and escalation procedures.

Software Product Business Knowledge

• Manage product requirements, current usage, future plans, and product vision.
• Collect and maintain functional requirements.
• Support product installations and customizations.
• Maintain information regarding customer usage and experience.
• Understand advanced product business features and functions.
• Identify opportunities, challenges, and non-traditional product uses.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

• Develop and evaluate user acceptance approaches.
• Review UAT plans for completeness and appropriateness.
• Define acceptance testing approaches and criteria.
• Work with end users to establish testing environments and acceptance criteria.
• Support acceptance testing throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Consult on UAT strategies, processes, plans, and approaches.

Key Skills

Education

Bachelor's degree