Group Product Lead

Group Product Lead**Advert Reference Number**:346**Job Location**:Milton Keynes, Remote/Hybrid**Department**:Student Services Portfolio**Salary**:£75,251 to £90,085**Closing Date**:11th November 2024**Weekly Working Hours**:37**Contract Type**:Permanent**Fixed Term Contract: End Date**:Not Applicable**Welsh Language Standard**:Not Applicable
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**About the Role**

**Reporting to**: Director of Product, Digital Services. As part of your role, you may be required to deputise for the Director of Product in Digital Services.

**About us**

The Open University (OU) is the largest university in the United Kingdom and reaches across all four nations. It is a global leader in higher education and research, using a model of open supported learning to deliver world-renowned teaching and learning content to over 200,000 students every year.

**About the role**

The Group Lead for Product is assigned to a portfolio of related products and services by the Director of Product. The role holder is responsible for leading and coaching a team of Product Managers within the Group, setting the Group Product strategy and vision so it meets the needs of delivering services to colleagues or students. Working closely with colleagues within a co-leadership model, the Group Product Lead will determine the priorities that the Group works on to maximise return on investment and enhance user experience, measuring progress through a set of agreed OKRs.

Working closely with the Group Leads for both Design and Engineering and the overall Group Digital Service Leader, they are responsible for helping teams to decide what problems to solve, creating products that are viable, feasible, usable and valuable, and ensuring successful delivery of outcomes across the Group. To structure and balance teams they will work with relevant Heads of Profession, who will hire, train and allocate staff to product teams where required.

**Key Responsibilities**
- Ensure successful delivery of outcomes across a portfolio of related products and services, including support, running, maintenance and new developments.
- Lead, manage and motivate a team of product professionals based in multidisciplinary product teams across the group, ensuring professional development, defining future capability needs and recruiting when needed.
- With the Director of Product, contribute to the development of an overall Product Strategy for the OU and help to create an actionable roadmap to develop the maturity of the Product Profession.
- Champion, advocate, influence and negotiate at a strategic level for Product across the OU, providing confidence to senior stakeholders, demonstrating how products are core to our organisational approach of ‘Being Service Led’.
- Communicate naturally and effectively with excellent story-telling skills, capable of bringing others with you on your journey.
- Set and implement the product strategy and roadmap for the Group, ensuring alignment with the over-arching product strategy and the business strategy.
- Design, develop and have overall ownership of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), outcomes and benefits for your group of products, working with Product Managers and Delivery Managers to ensure these are ambitious but achievable and link directly to desired outcomes and the strategic direction of the OU.
- Support the group to achieve and meet roadmap direction and outcomes.
- Establish and embed leadership and effective ways of working as a Group Product Lead with multiple multidisciplinary product teams.
- Be a visible internal and external thought leader, sharing work openly and establishing close links with relevant professional bodies and networks.

**Skills and Experience**

**We would love to hear from you if you have**:

- **Education**: Educated to degree level or extensive relevant experience.
- **Professional Experience**: Experience in product management or a related field such as business analysis, including some time as a senior product manager or senior business analyst.
- **Leadership skills**:Strong and demonstrable leadership skills, including the ability to manage, mentor and coach teams of product managers, as well as the ability to collaborate with other teams and senior stakeholders across the University. Proven ability to lead teams through ambiguity and into stability. Able to balance being part of leading a profession and being a leader of multidisciplinary teams within your Group.
- **Strategic thinking**: A dynamic, strategic mindset with the ability to share product vision and strategies with diverse stakeholders, reporting on the status of development and ensuring product roadmaps align with business goals.
- **Agile expertise**:Coach and lead teams in Agile ways of working, determining the right approach and evaluating this through the full product lifecycle.
- **Operational awareness**: Oversee the entire product lifecycle of multiple products and services from discovery through to adoption, maintenanc