Director, Product Management - Finance Technology Details

Director, Product Management - Finance Technology

Lowe's - Charlotte, NC

Employment Type : Full-Time

The Director, Product Management leads a product team (typically 5-10 Product Managers or Associate Product Managers) responsible for a specific product group. This role works with a high level of autonomy and discretion. Responsibilities include leading the team's research and product development efforts as well as implementation and execution of the product group strategy. This role develops a comprehensive product strategy, maintains the roadmap and backlog, and establishes the key performance indicators (KPIs) for a specific product group. In addition, the Director, Product Management develops and presents detailed business cases to senior executives and leads business reviews to ensure that the team prioritizes the right work and delivers the most customer value in the fastest time possible. This individual manages people which includes responsibility for setting individual and team expectations, delegating assignments and managing performance, identifying talent needs, and coaching and developing team members.

Key Responsibilities:

• Defines products and identifies gaps and customer needs by leading the development of white papers and requirements documents for product releases; commissioning studies (market research, usability, focus groups) to identify best-in-class solutions to customer needs; and overseeing experiments that uncover opportunities to add customer value to the product group
• Identifies relevant components of a competitive analysis and organizes in-person customer research with user groups to gain end-to-end real-world understanding of customer needs to inform and influence the product group and its product roadmaps
• Participates and contributes to annual product portfolio planning
• Develops and manages the medium-term (1-to-2-year) view of product roadmaps that comprise the product group, making trade-off decisions on multiple products in a product group
• Builds tight connections to cross-functional resources to improve efficiencies within a product group
• Leads and develops requirements documents (user stories with acceptance criteria, use cases) for multiple products or a group of products
• Sets the direction for the design of the user experience of assigned products
• Determines release goals, prioritization, implementation and iteration of assigned products
• Reviews demos with the tech team and validates acceptance criteria for assigned products
• Defines processes for team to effectively track development work and triage bugs of assigned products in product group
• Partners with relevant stakeholders and leads the development of launch and go-to-market plans of assigned products in product group
• Identifies issues and blockers that may delay the launch or impede the success of products in product group, communicates to leadership, and presents alternatives and recommendation to resolve
• Owns post-launch reviews, metrics and customer feedback, and incorporates learning into future launch and go-to-market plans; compiles learnings and best-practices and shares with other teams within the enterprise
• Engages with stakeholders and customers to determine product issues in the market to inform product roadmaps in product group
• Represents team in product group level discussions with internal and external stakeholders, and in strategic roadmap discussions with leadership
• Serves as an advocate for the team, the team's vision, and its strategic importance to the enterprise; sets leadership expectations for the team; models behavior that demonstrates Digital and enterprise leadership principles
• Identifies resource requirements for the team; builds a network of talent inside and outside of the company; and develops mechanisms to effectively onboard and ramp talent
• Aligns team goals to broader organizational and talent development goals
• Applies appropriate performance standards across different levels and positions in the team; and coaches direct reports and provides actionable feedback as part of talent and career development
• Leads and manages product group operations, mentors more junior product managers, and coordinates improvements goals for the team
• Builds and manages a Product Management team, helping to support the team's growth and removing obstacles as necessary
• Elevates the team's performance by providing insightful, motivating, and constructive feedback to all roles on the team and working with peers and senior leaders to negotiate and remove execution related barriers
• Provides leadership to the team by attracting and hiring talented individuals, setting goals and communicating clear expectations, providing timely and constructive feedback as well as meaningful developmental opportunities, managing performance, providing resources and support as needed, and sponsoring and leading team members through change
• Tracks product team’s velocity and optimizes delivery to ensure the most valuable work is always delivered first
• Works with cross-functional Product Management staff to drive work across other product teams and helps move and prioritize work into other product backlogs
• Develops and presents communications, frequently to senior leadership, communicating the desired message, at the appropriate level, for the right recipient
• Continuously reviews, refines and drives prioritization of the product roadmap, clearly articulating the vision and strategy to the product teams
• Develops and defends the business case for a new product feature or set of features; works with finance to create detailed financial models and uses business/financial acumen to modify as necessary; accountable for successful P&L of business case
• Runs Weekly Business Reviews for their product(s) and monitors product KPIs to ensure success metrics are being met, prioritizes options for improvement or enhancement

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, Communications, or related field
• 10 years of experience in two or more of the following: project management, product management, business analysis, program management or product marketing
• 6 years of experience in product and/or experience management
• 6 years of strategy and delivery experience in executing world-class digital products and/or experiences
• 5 years of experience in translating business strategy into specific product features
• 5 years of leadership experience with direct report responsibility
• 5 years of experience working with technology and user experience teams to define, scope and prioritize product requirements
• 5 years of demonstrated delivery of business results
• 3 years of experience in an agile software environment
• Demonstrated experience working cross-functionally in a large organization
• Experience collaborating closely with senior leadership
• 3 years of experience managing operational and/or project financial budgets
• Experience providing guidance and direction to cross-functional resources

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Business Administration or similar advanced degree
• 3 years of experience leading the digital product roadmap
• Prior leadership with a top 25 omni-channel retailer
• CSPO Certification
• Strong financial acumen