New Value Solutions, a national IT consulting company, is seeking a Product Owner to lead product discovery, current-state analysis, user research, problem definition, and product strategy for digital products with cross-divisional impact.
This role has a strong discovery and strategy focus. The Product Owner will work closely with Product Leadership, Business Leads, Business SMEs, CX/UX Research and Design teams, Scrum Masters, and Development teams to understand user and business needs, evaluate problems and opportunities, develop recommendations, support business case development, and translate strategic direction into product roadmaps, release plans, prioritized backlogs, and delivery requirements.
The successful candidate should be comfortable leading discovery, defining problems, evaluating options, and making recommendations rather than primarily translating predefined requirements into user stories and backlog items.
Responsibilities
- Lead product discovery activities, including current-state analysis, user research, stakeholder discovery, problem definition, and identification of user and business needs.
- Apply strategic thinking to evaluate problems, opportunities, and potential approaches and make recommendations aligned with broader organizational priorities and desired business outcomes.
- Conduct and synthesize user research to understand user needs, pain points, behaviours, and desired outcomes and apply findings to product decisions.
- Develop discovery documentation, including user needs, current-state findings, problem statements, options, recommendations, and supporting product documentation.
- Partner with the Senior Manager of Product and business stakeholders to help shape product strategy and support business case development.
- Create, maintain, and communicate product roadmaps and release plans aligned with strategic direction, user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility.
- Define, prioritize, and continuously manage the product backlog based on user needs, business value, organizational priorities, technical feasibility, risk, dependencies, and delivery capacity.
- Collaborate with CX/UX Research and Design teams to translate research and design insights into product decisions and delivery requirements.
- Work with Business Leads, SMEs, engineering, and technical teams to evaluate options and ensure product direction is operationally and technically feasible.
- Write clear user stories, acceptance criteria, sprint goals, and supporting product documentation once product direction and priorities have been established.
- Work with Scrum Masters and Development teams to ensure the backlog is well-refined, understood, and ready for upcoming sprints.
- Participate actively in Agile ceremonies, including Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.
- Understand development team capacity and velocity and use this information to guide sprint commitments, sequencing, and product prioritization.
- Collaborate with Business Leads and SMEs to ensure delivered products integrate effectively with operational processes and provide measurable business value.
- Work with CX/UX teams to support design fidelity, usability, accessibility, and business intent throughout delivery.
- Monitor product progress throughout the delivery lifecycle and validate completed features against user needs, business objectives, and intended outcomes.
- Identify and help resolve risks, dependencies, and impediments that may affect team progress or product delivery.
- Provide regular updates to stakeholders and senior leadership regarding product direction, recommendations, priorities, progress, risks, issues, and outcomes.
- Build strong relationships across business, product, design, technology, and leadership teams through continuous and effective communication.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of product management, discovery, Agile delivery, technology, and team collaboration practices.
Requirements
- University degree or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
- 3+ years of experience working as a Business Analyst and/or Product Owner.
- Minimum 2 years of direct hands-on experience working within Agile delivery environments.
- Demonstrated experience leading product discovery, including current-state analysis, user research, problem definition, evaluation of options, and development of recommendations.
- Ability to conduct and apply user research to product decisions and align user needs with desired business outcomes.
- Experience creating discovery documentation such as current-state assessments, user needs, problem statements, options, and recommendations.
- Experience contributing to product strategy and supporting business case development.
- Experience developing, maintaining, and communicating product roadmaps and release plans aligned with strategic direction.
- Strong hands-on experience with product backlog management, prioritization, user story development, acceptance criteria, and sprint planning.
- Ability to prioritize product backlog items based on user needs, business goals, technical feasibility, risk, dependencies, and delivery capacity.
- Strong understanding of Agile and Scrum practices, including backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, team capacity, and velocity.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across business, product, design, CX/UX, engineering, architecture, QA, and technical delivery teams.
- Excellent communication, presentation, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills, including experience communicating with senior leadership.
- Product Owner or Agile certification such as CSPO, PSPO, SAFe Product Manager/Product Owner, PMI-ACP, IEEE Computer Society Scrum Product Owner Certification, or similar is preferred.
ID# 5533
If you have the necessary expertise and are able to work in Canada, please submit your resume. While we thank all candidates in advance for their application, only those shortlisted will be contacted.
