Product Owner / Portfolio Manager

ePATHUSA•Des Moines, IA

About The Position

Seeking a Product Owner / Portfolio Manager to closely collaborate with business & IT management, oversee cross-functional fusion teams, and possess a drive for continuous improvement that is driven by data and user feedback. This role involves managing a portfolio of IT products and applications, ensuring their successful completion and alignment with business needs for both internal and external users. The Product Owner will guide products through all lifecycle stages, ensuring efficiency, quality, and alignment with strategic goals. This includes working with business SMEs, internal teams, external agencies, and vendors to define product scope, identify IT-enabled solutions, and support procurement and implementation processes. Key responsibilities include creating and prioritizing product backlogs and maintaining roadmaps that align with long-term IT strategies and changing user and state needs. The role also oversees product releases, ensures readiness for deployment, monitors performance, gathers feedback, and manages risks affecting delivery or budget. Collaboration with business and IT leadership is crucial for defining and tracking performance metrics, ensuring compliance with state, federal, and IT governance requirements. Vendor and service provider relationships will be managed, including performance oversight, issue resolution, and ensuring adherence to SLAs and availability targets. Financial oversight of product IT, including budget planning and monitoring, with regular updates to leadership on product status, risks, and roadmap progress, is also a key function. The role leads and manages cross-functional fusion teams, ensuring effective collaboration among IT, vendors, and business units to deliver solutions within business needs and budget constraints. Partnership with DoIT supervisors for resource allocation, team performance monitoring, and staff support is expected. Facilitating agile meetings, leading sprint reviews, and user story development are essential for team alignment and stakeholder presentations. Utilizing feedback and metrics to identify product needs and collaborating on acceptance criteria, testing, and feature delivery are also part of the role. Finally, collaboration with Executive Technology Officers (ETOs) and product teams to prioritize and manage product development efforts, ensuring alignment with agency needs and effective transition to enterprise services, is required. Building and maintaining strong relationships with client/business teams through regular communication and trust-building is vital for successful collaboration and issue resolution.

Requirements

Experience in Project management: planning/managing scope, budget, timeline, resources; coordinating project activities
Experience in Product ownership, portfolio management
Experience in Requirement elicitation, documentation and articulation between teams
Proficient understanding of the software development lifecycle and related methodologies
Experience partnering with vendor project teams, managing relationships and vendor management
High quality documentation: project plans, status updates, presentations, requirements, user stories, process maps, instructions
Demonstrated strong communication skills across technical teams and business stakeholders, specifically to leadership - setting/resetting expectations
Guide stages of agile software development, including user story development, sprint planning, and prioritization of the product backlog.
IT vendor management

Responsibilities

Manage a portfolio of IT products and applications, ensuring successful completion and alignment with business needs for both internal and external users.
Serve as a Product Owner to guide products through all lifecycle stages, ensuring efficiency, quality, and alignment with strategic goals.
Work with business SMEs, internal teams, external agencies, and vendors to define product scope, identify IT-enabled solutions, and support procurement and implementation processes.
Create and prioritize product backlogs and maintain roadmaps that align with long-term IT strategies and changing user and state needs.
Oversee product releases, ensure readiness for deployment, monitor performance, gather feedback, and manage risks affecting delivery or budget.
Collaborate with business and IT leadership to define and track performance metrics, ensuring all products and processes meet state, federal, and IT governance requirements.
Manage relationships with vendors and service providers, overseeing performance, resolving issues related to interoperability, and ensuring adherence to service level agreements (SLAs) and availability targets.
Oversee product IT financials, including budget planning and monitoring, while providing leadership with regular updates on product status, risks, and strategic roadmap progress.
Lead and manage cross-functional fusion teams, ensuring effective collaboration among IT, vendors, and business units to deliver solutions that align with business needs and budget constraints.
Partner with DoIT supervisors to allocate appropriate technical resources, monitor team performance, and provide ongoing support to fusion team staff.
Facilitate agile meetings and lead sprint reviews, user story development, ensuring team alignment on priorities and presenting outputs to stakeholders.
Use feedback and metrics to identify product needs and collaborate on acceptance criteria, testing, and feature delivery.
Collaborate with Executive Technology Officers (ETOs) and product teams to prioritize and manage product development efforts, ensuring alignment with agency needs and effectively transitioning products to enterprise services.
Build and maintain strong relationships with client/business teams, establishing regular communication and fostering trust to ensure successful collaboration and issue resolution.