BUSINESS TITLE:  Product Manager

JOB SUMMARY

The Product Manager cultivates and maintains strong relationships with interdisciplinary team members, and must possess a strong foundation of production and project management skills, while also bringing strong technical and creative skills and expertise to projects. They sit at the center of assignments as the acting product owner, bringing multi-disciplinary teams together on complex product and platform work. They are direct partners to the Technology and XD teams. A Product Manager is an analytical thinker who is deeply emphatic and leads with a user-centered approach and is a creative problem solver by nature. We are looking for someone who is driven to create and manage best-in-class interactive experiences, lead teams, oversee product development and maintain technology and production standards.

Strong leadership skills help them oversee team activities, as they are accountable for the quality of their work, ensuring goals are met and projects are delivered in line with timing and budget expectations. This is a client-facing role, working directly with clients, client-designated partners and external vendors.

The Product Manager has 3+ years of product, integrated, or digital experience bringing small to medium-scale complex projects through the full software development life cycle using Agile methodologies. Experience in the healthcare marketing industry is preferred but not required. Finance or Tech experience a plus.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

Product Management

• Supporting discovery process and work sessions internally and with clients to identify and breakdown challenges or problems into manageable tasks
• Drives the adoption of agile practice and acts as an in-house product expert, comfortable teaching and inspiring others on the positive impact of product-development best practices
• Align on goals with all key stakeholders, support discovery, author and collaborate with clients on business and product requirements, establish KPIs, establish and maintain backlog, and assess long-term product lifecycle goal and maintenance needs
• Shepard products from conception to launch
• Incorporate user feedback, testing, usage metrics, and other product-driven learnings to guide product iteration
• Work closely with tech leads to solidify business and technology requirement documents

Technology

• An understanding of SDLC principles
• Act as decision maker between business strategy and technology

JOB DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work with account and functional leads to develop scopes of work, product roadmap and timing, and budgets based on business, user, regulatory, technical, and functional requirements.
• Define product strategy by using a variety of inputs through discovery and research activities
• Translate and breakdown product strategy into detailed requirements and prototypes
• Deeply understand the product audience and their needs
• Perform the dual role of client advocate and agency team advocate
• Partner with the Account team and serve as primary client contact for a project, managing expectations
• Communicate project status to teams and clients on a regular basis.
• Responsible for allocation of Technology and QA resources on projects.
• Execute change management documentation for feature and scope changes.
• Create buy-in for the product vision both with client partners and internally at the agency.
• Define and document best practices and contribute to department knowledge sharing effort.
• Work with Quality Assurance to formulate and execute Test Plans.
• Develop RFP’s for outside vendors and guide selection process.
• Design effective launch programs with partners to ensure that new products and feature releases are tested before broad-scale deployment.
• Define the approach and scope of projects (goals, deliverables, schedule, and budget)
• Partner with Account Management and Finance to track and report project burn.
• Manage interdisciplinary teams to execute conceptual work into clear sets of deliverables
• Manage third party vendors
• Keep projects on track through clear task lists, issue tracking, status reports, and meeting notes
• Help set up internal and external meetings, presentations and conference calls
• Ensure the delivery of all project deliverables on time, on budget and of the highest quality
• Maximize efficiency in a constantly evolving environment where the process is fluid

LICENSES & CERTIFICATIONS

• CSM/CSPO, PMI (Strongly encouraged but not required based on commensurate working experience)

EXPERIENCE

• 3+ years experience in product, integrated or digital production and/or program management
• Ideally has certifications or hands on experience with agile project management methodologies
• Previous advertising agency experience
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Experience developing social products, technologies and platforms
• Experience with AEM, Sitecore or similar content management systems is preferred

KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

• Proficiency with Workfront, Monday, Trello, Jira, Confluence, and other project management tools
• Strong knowledge of app and web development technologies, technology vendors and third-party offerings