CareerSpot

Responsible for helping define, direct, and launch select AIA digital products.  The Sr. Manager will work as a member of the Planning Chapter, driving stakeholder engagement;  roduct definition and improvement to maximize product value; works with stakeholders to establish product roadmaps; manages and prioritizes the product backlog; documents requirements in the form of stories; and works with their squad to ensure acceptance criteria are met.

The Sr. Manager understands agile development processes and understands software, user interface design, and the business needs and is able to simplify complex and sometimes competing requirements.

       Job Duties:

Planning and Stakeholder management

• Plan product development.
• Work with stakeholders to establish the product vision, goals and roadmap and refine when necessary.
• Discuss the expectations and the progression of the product with business users and customers.
• Lead business analysis sessions to support new and enhancement development efforts.
• Develop and communicate the vision of the product being developed.
• Create user stories, user acceptance criteria, epics, process maps, data mapping and formal requirements documentation.
• Prioritize the requirements/User Stories based on their business value and risks.
• Define the goals of Sprints and Releases.
• Communicate with the business users and stakeholders on a regular basis to provide feedback on progress of the implementation of the vision.
• Work with the product key stakeholders and contributors to develop training resources and provide internal and external stakeholder training on an as needs basis.
• Participate in meetings, and accurately capture meeting notes and perform post-meeting communication to attendees.

   Product Development and Release

• Manage the Product Backlog.
• Participate in change management process to evaluate change requests and assess the benefits.
• Ensure and assist in achieving and meeting project deadlines and schedules.
• Support UAT activities, to include defect triage, solution recommendation and prioritization.
• Work with developers to help prepare for upcoming sprints by reviewing business requirements.
• Support developers throughout the sprint by answering their questions, for the goal of completing committed stories at the conclusion of the sprint.
• Participate in internal product testing.
• Successfully launch products in conjunction with the Devs Ops team, and plan/prioritize and execute the next features.
• Prepare status reports on an as needs basis.
• Define and document products using Jira and Confluence, and other approved platforms.
• Lead the communications and collaboration with customers, tech team and external partners to optimize activities.
• Provide group facilitation, vision and direction to key stakeholders and contributors throughout the project ensuring requirements are developed and implemented efficiently.
• Participate in team meetings to discuss process improvement strategy to meet business goals and objectives.
• Manage schedules, which may include secondary resources and delivery of assigned AIA digital products.
• Conduct business process analysis and provide recommendations for process improvement.
• Oversee development stages including sprint planning, refinement and review. 
• Evaluate product progress from each iteration.
• Collaborate with customers ensuring that release plan expectations are set.
• Assess and plan beyond the immediate business needs; position our products in such a way so that they can grow and enhance value, and potentially create new revenue opportunities.
• Work closely with cross-functional agile project teams and help drive projects across the product design, development, testing and deployment.
• Keep stakeholders apprised of progress, timelines, important updates.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs) and Training and Experience:

• Master’s in Information Technology or equiv; at least 2 yrs exp in software development, developing/analyzing user stories and using Agile/Scrum, and Atlassian Tool Suite or similar team-based suite (exp can be gained concurrently); knowledge of planning and delivering complex digital solutions and human-centered design methodologies & product development