Our client who are an education management software company have an urgent requirement for an Interim Head of Product for a new software product. Reporting to the Product Director, this role will lead the product team through the delivery of a Quality Initiative. The position will be on an FTC basis for a period of 6 months, with the opportunity to convert to permanent.
This position is home based, ideally with the ability to travel to the Bedfordshire area.
Main Responsibilities:
Delivery of the Quality Initiative;
- Ensuring that the high-level prioritisation set by the Product Director is executed at the coal face.
- Involves reviewing backlogs with Product Owners and managing dependencies between dev teams. Working directly with the Dev Managers / Scrum Masters may also be beneficial to drive alignment to common goals.
- Ensure the team engages productively with external technical consultants. Based on the consultants’ output, make recommendations as to how to balance resource between bug fixing and re-writing existing software modules.
- Keeping stakeholders in Customer Success Management, helpdesk and Sales / pre-Sales appraised of progress and status so they in turn can manage any customer communication.
- Working closely with Programme Management Office (PMO) to track progress, to agree any remedial action, to review programme status reports and to forecast the eventual duration of the Quality Initiative (to inform launch planning).
- Implement any tactical improvements to the way the client works (RACI, process, systems) to ensure the resources allocated to the Quality Initiative work as effectively as possible.
- Line management of the product management team: 5 in the UK + Props / Pricing Manager.
- Involves regular catch-ups to manage performance against personal objectives.
- Direction of the 6 offshore Product Owners – they’re each buddied up to a UK person and their objectives mirror those of their UK buddy.
- Onboarding of new Product Owners. This involves arranging for knowledge transfer, ensuring they are ‘connected’ to the relevant calls and fora, that their ‘buddy’ relationship with the UK PO works, that they have access to relevant tools (e.g. ADO, SNOW) and equipment (mailbox, laptop, phone, etc.).
Ideal candidate background:
- Experienced Head of Product who is able to start a 6 month FTC at short notice.
- 10+ years experienced gained working within Software/SaaS businesses.
- Strong delivery track record, ideally in new product development following Agile methodologies.
- Previous experience of dealing with large Capex projects c£5-10m P&L responsibility
- Previous experience of portfolio transformation / creating a roadmap to product portfolios
- Strong people management skills – experience in leading and motivating onshore and offshore teams of 10+
- Strong background in Product Management, Programme Management or Change Delivery gained at “Senior” or “Head of” level.
- Comfortable working at the detail and is effective at communicating concisely to the SLT.
To apply, please forward your CV along with a summary of your relevant experience to: rex.cridland@njr.uk.com quoting NJR/RC367.