Product ManagerMethods

Your role

As a Product Manager you will be responsible for leading services through the various lifecycle stages following GDS standards & principles.

You’ll be proficient in translating user and business needs into a clear product strategy. You will use your knowledge of user needs and business goals to frame problems and set priorities for your delivery teams.

To succeed in this role, you should be a perceptive and creative leader and a reliable problem-solver. You will be able to understand how policy and/or technology constraints affect the development of your products, and how creating digital services benefits the user.

A product manager defines, owns and solves problems. At this level you:

◼ Will manage a product through discovery, alpha, beta and live states

◼ Will support lead and senior product managers

◼ May line manage associate product managers and support their professional development

◼ Will be developing expert skills in and knowledge of product management techniques

◼ May be involved in recruitment

Skills we are looking for Agile working (Practitioner level)

● You can identify and compare the best processes or delivery methods to use, including measuring and evaluating outcomes

● You know how to help the team decide the best approach

● You can help teams manage and visualise outcomes, prioritise work and work to agreed minimum viable product (MVP)

DDaT perspective (Working level)

● You can demonstrate a working understanding of design, technology and data principles

● You understand the variety and complexity of users’ digital needs and how the product will meet those needs

● You know about assisted digital support and can explain why it’s important

● You can design services and make decisions to meet user needs

Experience of working within constraints (Working level)

● You can identify constraints and can communicate about these and work within them

● You know how to challenge the validity of constraints

● You can ensure standards are being met

Financial ownership (Practitioner level)

● You understand the marketplace, realising the benefit and persuading others that a product is the right one to use

● You know how to integrate a product with other services

● You can ensure the product gets used

● You can realise benefits by linking work in progress back to the business case

● You can build business cases based on user needs

Lifecycle perspective (Working level)

● You recognise when to move from one stage of a product lifecycle to another

● You can ensure the team is working towards the appropriate service standards for the relevant phase

● You can manage delivery products and services at different phases

Operational management (Practitioner level)

● You know how to design operational processes for running and maintenance of products or services throughout their product life cycle

● You can redesign operational processes, amend existing processes, and plan and put into operation the stages of a new product or service development

● You can act as the escalation point for operational issues and can fix complex operational issues

● You know how to overcome operational constraints to deliver a successful product or service

● You can work closely with operational delivery teams in digital. data and technology (DDaT)

Problem ownership (Practitioner level)

● You know how to ensure that the right actions are taken to investigate, resolve and anticipate problems.

● You can coordinate the team to investigate problems and implement solutions and preventative measures.

Product ownership (Practitioner level)

● You know how to apply tools, terms and concepts in a variety of ways

● You can be flexible, consider new ways of working and adapt to change

Strategic ownership (Practitioner level)

● You know how to get buy-in from the organisation

● You can work with scant information and explain it in abstract terms

● You can develop a strategy

User focus (Practitioner level)

● You know how to collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally

● You understand the difference between user needs and the desire of the user

● You can champion user research to focus on all users

● You can prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so

● You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to be used

This role will require you to have or be willing to go through Security Clearance. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard; details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website Gov.UK. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected . Details of this will be discussed with you at interview