Senior Product Manager

SENIOR PRODUCT OWNER-MANAGER- JOB DESCRIPTION

About SWORD

SWORD Group, being a leader in IT software solutions and services, has 3600+ IT/Digital & Software specialists present over 5 continents to accompany you in the growth of your organization in the digital age. SWORD is present in the MEA region through its offices in Lebanon, Riyadh, Dubai, Cyprus, and Lebanon counting more than 400 skilled consultants.

As a leader in technological and digital transformation, SWORD Group has since the year 2000 acquired a solid reputation in software solutions and in complex IT & business project management. With SWORD you have the guarantee of strong close and qualified local commitment, the aim of which is to automate your business processes and optimize/maximize the usage of business data.

We are looking for an
Expert Product Owner
to join the project team in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Key Responsibilities:

Product Management:

• Strategic alignment:
  Ensure the product's evolution and the team's daily work are aligned with the company's strategic goals.
• Product vision:
  Articulate and communicate a clear product vision to the development team and stakeholders.
• Market and customer insight:
  Gather and analyze market trends, competitor information, customer feedback, and product performance data to inform the strategy.
• Backlog management:
  Manage the product backlog by creating, refining, and prioritizing items (like user stories) that support the product strategy.
• Stakeholder management:
  Act as the primary liaison between stakeholders (customers, business leaders) and the development team, ensuring their needs are considered and managed.
• Decision-making:
  Make empowered decisions to guide the product's direction and remove obstacles to achieve the vision.
• Value maximization:
  Focus on maximizing the value delivered by the development team in each iteration.

Project Management:

• Acting as facilitator for key Agile ceremonies, including estimation, planning, demos and retrospectives.
• Follow-up of the progress of the team on a day-to-ay basis and providing progress reporting.
• Facilitating decision making within Agile Teams.
• Managing potential conflicts among team members.
• Facilitating and promoting a collaborative and cooperative working environment among the team.
• Helping the team identify and remove obstacles that may prevent them achieve their iteration, release, product or project goals.
• Technical interface between the project leaders, the developers and the operations.
• Developing and agreeing with the team on a set of relevant information radiators.
• Creating enabler user stories and acceptance tests from themes and features granular enough for a single sprint/iteration.
• Being involved in the decision-making process related to user stories.
• Creating / updating documentation as part of knowledge management.
• Facilitating live demonstrations of the product at the end of the sprint/iteration.
• Supporting in transitioning from Project to Operations.
• Participating in the design and creation of scalable software.
• Performing POCs in the requested technologies.

Job Requirements

Knowledge and skills:

• Excellent leadership, negotiation and conflict resolutions skills.
• Excellent knowledge and practical experience with Agile values and Principles and how they relate to frameworks like SCRUM, PM²-Agile, etc.
• Strong facilitation skills, including key Agile ceremonies like Iteration Planning, Review and Retrospective; Planning Poker sessions.
• Extensive knowledge and experience with Agile Estimating and Planning.
• Excellent training, mentoring and coaching skills.
• Ability to analyze different types of scenarios and provide actionable feedback to the teams.
• Ability to clearly describe Problem and Solution perspectives, how they are connected and how they drive solution implementation.
• Knowledge of lean principles applied to software development.
• Ability to identify, agree and describe performance/metric indicators for Agile teams.
• Rapid self-starting capability.
• Capability to speak to business and technical audiences and to write clear and structured documents.
• Ability to apply high quality standards.

Specific Expertise, technologies and tools:

• At least 5 years of experience in Agile application development activities
• At least 5 years of experience in working as a SCRUM master / Team Coordinator and in setting up and facilitating Agile ceremonies.
• At least 5 years of experience in story estimation and management of team velocity
• At least 5 years of experience in defining information radiators including burnup and burndown charts, velocity charts, release charts etc.
• At least 5 years of experience in analysis, use-case specifications and user stories.
• At least 5 years of experience in Agile toolbox (e.g. JIRA, Confluence, etc).
• Excellent communication skills in English Language.
• French Language is a plus.
• Previous expertise in any programming language is a plus

Why working at SWORD ?

• Enjoy a Hybrid or Remote Work Environment
• Being part of a Dynamic and Supportive Environment focused on Employee Wellness
• Gain International Exposure and Multicultural Experience
• Learn from a Diversified Team of experts across the world
• Participate in major projects with industry leaders
• Benefit from an attractive compensation package.