Sr Digital Product manager

Position Summary

Leading a digital product team to identify opportunities and develop digital solutions, the Sr. Digital Product Manager will drive strategies and long-term vision with the focus on building best in class digital products. Partner with Directors to proactively engage with business units and digital stakeholders and core IT teams to understand roadmaps and actively connect the dotes for cross-team planning. This role will analyze data from surveys to identify patterns, vulnerabilities, and areas of improvement.

The Sr. Product Manager will conduct user research and usability studies, collaborating with designers, developers, research teams and other cross-functional partners throughout the process. The Sr. Product Manager will work with feedback and other metrics to strategically build new digital capabilities, innovation, and business results. The role will require a strategic product development mindset coupled with flexibility and willingness to dive into tactical workflow as well. The Sr. Digital Product Manager for NU Initiatives may work on several product lines simultaneously at a somewhat “high level” versus “owning” any one product; thus, the role is ideal for a person who thrives on variety and shifting priorities.

The Sr Digital Product Manager will work with their team to convert strategy and solution vision into the product vision by creating the backlog of epics and user stories. This role is responsibility for creating, managing, and prioritizing the digital strategic roadmap and must have a customer-first/student centric mindset.

Essential Functions:

• Oversee requirements discovery, solution design, user story writing, feature development, and user acceptance testing.
• Promote products to targeted audiences.
• Prioritizing and aligning the efforts of agile product teams and epics/features associated with programs.
• Managing the initiative backlog across teams, pilots, and ROI.
• Identify dependencies among the varying digital teams as well as with external teams.
• Setting goals using measurable data points and evaluate success of the initiative vs plan.
• Contribute to monthly product review meetings.
• Lead the Digital Product team in efforts to utilize analytical thinking and strategic framing to help evaluate choices & identify critical trends and future opportunities.
• Conduct a wide variety of market research, validation, and white space analysis to identify opportunities for new or existing features and functionalities.
• Partner with stakeholders to understand outcomes, needs, and define solutions to deliver the outcomes desired.
• Craft product vision (short and long term) and convert to concrete strategy.
• Conduct user research and usability studies, collaborating with designers, developments, and research teams throughout the process.
• Partner with executive team to identify key capabilities needed as well as potential issues.
• Partner regularly with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment on feature development and prioritization including business owners and agile product teams.
• Monitor and evaluate product performance to facilitate continuous iteration and improvement.
• Partner with IT to define and manage roadmap and backlog for digital product(s).
• Partner with IT to deliver products, capabilities, and experiences on time and per expectation.
• Develops and presents Return on Investments analytics (ROI), Business Case proposals, Cost/Benefit Analysis and Technology proposals with support from the Business and IT teams.
• Work with IT partners to understand current technology landscape and new trends, make recommendations, and make decisions on best solution to leverage for outcomes being delivered.
• Execute and manage digital RFP needs.
• Align and manage partnership relationships with 3rd party vendors and/or suppliers.
• Define success metrics and KPIs, while also tracking progress against those success metrics.
• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• This role will be managing cross functional resources and potentially Analyst and other product resources
• Could have 1 or 2 product analysts, developers and contractors reporting to this position.

Requirements:

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree; and 5 years relevant experience in digital product management; or equivalent combination of experience.
• Experience delivering in an agile practice.
• Extensive experience in business analytics, human centered design, and product management.
• Comprehensive analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving experience.
• Demonstrated successful experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
• Experience in higher education preferred.
• Experience working in a technology-driven enterprise preferred.
• All skills, abilities and education will be considered for minimum qualifications.

Competencies/Technical/Functional Skills:

• Ability to lead a product team
• Strong listening skills, Strong prioritization skills,
• An ability to understand data that can be used to track, analyze, and improve our digital products.
• Accepts personal accountability, proactively seeks resolution for personal limitations head-on; and supports honesty and respect towards others, the company and oneself.
• Actively seeks to influence, build effective relationships, and gain alignment with peers, functional partners and/or external partners to accomplish business objectives.
• Develops new insights into situations; questions conventional approaches; encourages new ideas and innovations; designs and implements new or cutting-edge programs/processes. Ability to generate and/or recognize imaginative or creative solutions that generate successful outcomes.
• Working knowledge, principles, and practices of office management/systems within a higher education environment, preferred. Demonstrates an understanding of underlying organizational issues.
• Intermediate use of computers and Microsoft Office Suite Applications such as Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook.
• Ability to drive towards achieving measurable and challenging goals to support organizational success. Demonstrates the ability to focus on achieving results consistent with the organization’s objectives. As a leader, develops goals based on the organization’s vision, mission, strategic goals, and objectives.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to effectively communicate with a wide range of individuals of constituencies in a diverse community.
• Knowledge in overseeing the design, development, and implementation of software and hardware solutions, systems, or products.
• Knowledge in importing data for use in report software, spreadsheets, graphs, and flowcharts.
• Experience with Photoshop, and MS project preferred.
• Skill in performing business and technical requirements analysis, business process modeling/mapping, methodology development, and data modeling.
• Ability to create systematic and manual operations procedures in both technical and user-friendly language.
• Ability to apply statistical and other research methods into systems issues and products as required.
• Ability to propose alternative business processes based on analysis.
• Knowledge of SDLC and how to design, develop and implement software solution.
• Excellent analytical, mathematical, and creative problem-solving skills.

Travel :

Some travel may be required, possibly up to 20% of the time.

National University is committed to maintaining a high-quality, diverse workforce representative of the populations we serve. As a network of nonprofit educational institutions, the System employs more than 3,300 faculty and staff and serves over 41,000 students. We are united in our mission to meet the global education demands of the 21st Century and are dedicated to creating a supportive academic and work environment that allows for students, faculty and staff to develop their interests and talents while experiencing a sense of community and a commitment to diversity. With programs available both online and at our many campus locations, National University is a leader in creating innovative solutions to education and meeting the needs of our diverse student population, including adult learners and working professionals.

National University offers an opportunity to work in an innovative environment that supports diversity.

National University (NU) is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate against any employee or applicant for employee per applicable federal, state and local laws. At NU, a diverse mix of highly talented, innovative and creative people come together to make the impact of a lifetime for each of our student learners. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment, education, and admission at National University. We are focused on equality and believe deeply in diversity of race, color, ancestry, age, family care status, veteran status, marital status, creed, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and other legally protected group status.