Product Owner/Portfolio Manager

Agama Solutions•Des Moines, IA

11h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Department of Management (DOM), Division of Information Technology (DoIT), is seeking a Product Owner/Portfolio Manager. This role involves managing a portfolio of IT products and applications, guiding products through all lifecycle stages, and ensuring alignment with business needs and strategic goals. The position requires collaboration with various stakeholders, including business SMEs, internal teams, external agencies, and vendors, to define product scope, identify solutions, and manage procurement and implementation. The Product Owner/Portfolio Manager will be responsible for creating and prioritizing product backlogs, maintaining roadmaps, overseeing releases, managing IT financials, and leading cross-functional teams. This role also involves facilitating agile meetings, managing vendor relationships, and ensuring compliance with state, federal, and IT governance requirements. The position is hybrid and renews at fiscal (7/1/26) and is slated to end on 12/31/26. Only local regional candidates should be submitted.

Requirements

Experience in Project management: planning/managing scope, budget, timeline, resources; coordinating project activities - 5 Years
Experience in Product ownership, portfolio management - 2 Years
Experience in Requirement elicitation, documentation and articulation between teams - 5 Years
Proficient understanding of the software development lifecycle and related methodologies - 5 Years
Experience partnering with vendor project teams, managing relationships and vendor management - 5 Years
High quality documentation: project plans, status updates, presentations, requirements, user stories, process maps, instructions - 5 Years
Demonstrated strong communication skills across technical teams and business stakeholders, specifically to leadership - setting/resetting expectations - 5 Years
Guide stages of agile software development, including user story development, sprint planning, and prioritization of the product backlog - 3 Years
IT vendor management - 3 Years

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.