Product Owner

Consumers Energy•Jackson, MI

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, serving 6.8 million residents across 68 Lower Peninsula counties. The company is committed to delivering reliable, clean, and affordable energy 24/7. This is a hybrid position requiring onsite days on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at the Parnall Office in Jackson, MI. The selected candidate must be within commuting distance or willing to relocate, with relocation assistance available for qualified individuals. The Product Owner will gather product input from research, stakeholders, past experiences, and Agile team members to evaluate potential work based on value. They are responsible for defining new work and visions into a product backlog for Agile delivery teams, ensuring each item has clear business value. The role involves developing business cases and justifications for product backlogs and funding. The Product Owner takes ownership of a product, analyzing its current state and future potential to determine steps for improvement and meeting business objectives. This specific role focuses on digital tools and automation within the Electric Supply delivery lifecycle, including energy/capacity planning, modeling, prospecting, solicitation, project execution, and power generation unit operation. The goal is to maximize the value of current tools and build an impactful roadmap for future enhancements.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in product management, engineering, or information technology, and at least two (2) years of experience as a subject matter expert in a product, industry, or business area as well as direct experience working with products and stakeholders, and prior roles as a business analyst or product owner.
Associate’s degree in product management, engineering, or information technology, and at least four (4) years of experience as a subject matter expert in a product, industry, or business area as well as direct experience working with products and stakeholders, and prior roles as a business analyst or product owner.
High school diploma and at least six (6) years of experience as a subject matter expert in a product, industry, or business area as well as direct experience working with products and stakeholders, and prior roles as a business analyst or product owner.
Proven ability to analyze, assess value, and prioritize potential improvements to products or areas.
Strong experience in communicating, negotiating, and managing stakeholder expectations.
Business area and product knowledge.
Analytical skills.
Verbal, written, and facilitation skills.
Conflict resolution and negotiation skills.
Ability to define a vision based on input from multiple stakeholders.
Ability to quantify, evaluate, and communicate product progress.
Ability to navigate ambiguity.
Ability to manage and prioritize the product backlog.
Ability to understand, analyze, and anticipate stakeholder needs.
Ability to act as the primary liaison with decision-making authority.

Responsibilities

Approve work for release and identify release timing needs with stakeholder input to ensure customer needs are met.
Align with stakeholders to ensure they are expecting the release and are prepared for new functionality as needed.
Communicate the overall product vision, focusing on what and why regarding product work, including developing presentations, business cases, and justifications for product backlogs and funding.
Elicit and express customer and stakeholder needs into a product backlog by gathering and analyzing input from research, stakeholders, past experience, and Agile team members.
Define the backlog for sequential and incremental delivery to realize business value frequently.
Include technical debt in all priority considerations, focusing on reducing it and understanding the results of approaches that expedite work.
Focus on improving the flow of work and reducing overall technical debt in the product.
Make decisions on when items are "done" and in a state to begin realizing value or objectives, validating completion against the team’s "definition of done", stakeholder feedback, risks, issues, and acceptance criteria.
Manage customer and stakeholder expectations, including resolving ambiguous business priority conflicts and saying "no" when necessary.
Manage, prioritize, and clarify backlog items according to evolving business and project conditions, continually analyzing and reprioritizing the backlog based on feedback and changing circumstances.
Lead Agile team events, attending, representing customers and stakeholders, and making decisions regarding product priorities and conflicts.
Clarify and communicate the vision and known details around value and objectives of product backlog items.
Perform other duties as assigned or as may be necessary.