Product Owner

**Product Owner**

The Product Owner role is critical for successful Agile product development, as they act as the bridge between business stakeholders, the development team, designers and customers, ensuring that the product delivers value and meets the needs of the users. The Product Owner plays a central role in creating a collaborative and effective product development environment.

**Role & Responsibilities**:

- Product Backlog Management.
- Prioritisation: Determine the priority of items in the product backlog based on business value, customer needs, and strategic goals gaining feedback from the business and stakeholders.
- Continuous Refinement: Regularly refine and update the product backlog as new information becomes available or priorities change.
- Requirements Definition: User Stories. Clearly articulate user stories and acceptance criteria to guide the development team.
- Requirements Elicitation.
- Gather Requirements: Work closely with stakeholders to elicit and document business requirements for new projects or changes to existing systems.
- Interviews and Workshops: Conduct interviews, workshops, and surveys to understand business processes, goals, and challenges.
- Vision and Goals: Define and communicate the product vision and goals to ensure a shared understanding among all stakeholders and the development teams
- Stakeholder Management: Work closely with stakeholders, including customers, end-users, and business leaders, to understand their needs and gather feedback.
- Communicate Priorities: Effectively communicate product priorities and decisions to all relevant stakeholders.
- Roadmap Development: Collaborate with the Head of Software Products to create and maintain a product roadmap that aligns with business objectives.
- Release Planning: Plan and prioritise features for each release, balancing the need for new features and technical debt.
- Decision Making: Make timely and informed decisions to guide the development team and keep the project on track.
- Risk Management: Assess and manage risks related to product development and delivery.
- Acceptance Criteria: Define clear acceptance criteria for user stories to ensure that the delivered product meets business expectations.
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Participate in or facilitate user acceptance testing to validate that the product meets user needs.
- Feedback Integration: Incorporate feedback from stakeholders, end-users, and the development team into the product backlog.
- Inspect and Adapt: Regularly review and adapt the product backlog and priorities based on feedback and changing requirements.
- Collaborate with Development Team: Work closely with the product, design & development teams, providing clarifications on requirements and ensuring a shared understanding.
- Scrum Events: Participate in Agile ceremonies such as sprint planning, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.
- Quality Assurance: Ensure that the delivered product meets quality standards and aligns with the definition of done.
- Continuous Improvement: Encourage a culture of continuous improvement within the team.
- Market & Competitor Analysis: Stay informed about market trends and competitor products to make informed decisions about the product roadmap.
- Effective Communication: Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, ensuring a shared understanding of product goals and priorities.

**Skills & Requirements**
- A minimum of 4 years’ experience in a similar Product Owner role
- Very good track record of achievement as a PO, able to talk through what they have done and the positive impact they have made
- Web-based background is desirable
- Agile background is essential
- Team player
- Excellent problem-solving ability and not afraid to question
- Stakeholder management skills
- Outstanding communication skills
- A previous background in and understanding of Hospitality and Food Safety to some expect would be advantageous

**Who are Shield Safety?**

We are a leading Environmental Health consultancy, focussed on making safety simple and we work with a wide range of businesses across Hospitality and Retail. Our clients range from single-site coffee shops and takeaways to supermarkets and pub groups. Basically, anywhere you can eat, drink, sleep or shop in the UK. Some of our well-known clients include Tesco, YO Sushi, Empire Cinemas, Radisson Hotels and KFC. We're extremely proud of our 95% customer retention rate.

We specialise in providing risk-management services including Food Safety Audits, Health & Safety Audits, Fire Risk Assessments, Consultancy and Training. All delivered by a highly experienced and well-qualified team of Safety Professionals. We’re also paper-free. Our clever team of software superstars have developed RiskProof, our cloud-based software and companion app for compliance and risk management.

Shield Safety celebrated our 20th birthday this year and we’re extremely excited for the future