Product Owner in Watford

Are you a seasoned Product Owner or experienced professional with a track record of driving complex roadmaps and delivering real business value? We are recruiting and this role could be just for you!

Role Purpose

As a Product Owner at Wickes, you will play a pivotal role in driving the development and optimisation of technology products within your designated product family. Collaborating closely with Technology teams, cross‑functional teams, business stakeholders, and third parties, you will ensure the delivery of systems that enhance the customer experience, streamline operations, and drive business value. You will be responsible for balancing business change with technical change, ensuring that the evolution of products aligns with both operational needs and technical priorities. This requires fostering strong relationships across teams to maintain a shared vision and prioritised roadmap for your products. The role encompasses facilitating requirements and setting the strategic direction for propositions and products, leveraging customer data, insights, and performance metrics to make informed decisions about future development.

While the Product Delivery Manager (PDM) oversees the Software Development Life Cycle, the Product Owner focuses on defining and refining product requirements, collaborating on solution designs, and driving ongoing improvements to meet the needs of customers and the business effectively. A strong communicator and collaborator, capable of articulating the complex technical elements of a product in a way that key stakeholders can understand. In this role, you will also leverage Generative AI tools to develop innovative solutions with speed and efficiency, helping to accelerate product development and operational effectiveness.

What you’ll be doing

• Develop and communicate a clear roadmap for a specific product or product set, ensuring alignment with our business goals and objectives to drive business value.
• Collaborate with the Senior Business Owner to refine the vision and work closely with the Product Delivery Manager (PDM) to ensure the roadmap is realistic and achievable within technical and operational constraints.
• Engage with key stakeholders across the business to gather requirements, understand pain points and opportunities, ensuring alignment with broader business strategies.
• Translate and communicate requirements to our technology teams and functional teams and work in collaboration to understand and make recommendations that align with the functional strategy.
• Maximise investment by balancing costs against ROI, ensuring delivery on time, within scope, and driving the agreed ROI.
• Take ownership of the product backlog, ensuring it reflects a well‑defined, prioritised list of deliverables that support business goals.
• Make trade‑off decisions about scope, value, time, and risk to maximise delivery of business value.
• Define the value of each backlog item and determine the appropriate scope for each sprint.
• Continuously refine and evolve the backlog to ensure clarity and alignment with the overall product vision.
• Maintain a detailed and structured backlog that enables the Technology teams to deliver effectively, avoiding vague or ad‑hoc lists that hinder progress.
• Manage communication with key stakeholders and impacted teams to ensure that product deliverables are in line with the product objectives and progress is monitored and reported.
• Ensure that the product when developed is accepted by Business functions and teams and those teams are equipped to deliver the projected benefits.
• Active role in Scrum Ceremonies, participating in Sprint Planning, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective to ensure that the product backlog is communicated, prioritised and refined and each sprint is reviewed for efficiency and quality of delivery.
• Partner with Product Delivery Managers to ensure the seamless delivery of high‑quality features, leveraging the appropriate delivery methodology and embedding the necessary rhythms and routines to drive efficiency and alignment across the product family.
• Liaise with other Product Owners to foster collaboration on cross‑functional projects, ensuring dependencies are effectively managed, priorities are aligned, and a cohesive customer experience is delivered.
• Use data and insight to ensure that the product solutions are developed with a strong customer focus (internal and external), continuously improving customer journeys across various channels (in store, online, mobile).
• Work in partnership with the service management team to ensure the seamless operation on the product throughout its lifecycle.

What we are looking for

• Work experience as a Product Owner or similar role in product management.
• Hands‑on experience managing all stages of the product life cycle.
• Technical background with knowledge of software development and web technologies.
• Experience working in agile environments with a good understanding of scrum methodologies.
• Experience working in a waterfall environment with enterprise systems.
• Proficiency in Jira & Confluence toolsets.
• Good understanding of change management principles, techniques and tools.
• Highly articulate, personable and engaging.
• Well organised, flexible and responsive to competing priorities.
• Remain focused and resilient for extended projects or in prolonged challenging experiences.
• Ability to identify, engage and tailor communication to the relevant stakeholders.
• Ability to interrogate concepts and ideas with effective questioning to ensure understanding and clarity of direction.
• Ability to leverage Generative AI tools to enhance productivity and innovation.
• Generic knowledge of IT projects ways of working and principles.
• General understanding of Software applications.
• A deep understanding of our customer profiles and customer types.
• Understanding of existing, new and emerging technologies, and processing environments.
• Detailed knowledge and understanding of the functional set.
• Awareness of Generative AI capabilities and their application in product development.

What can we offer you

You’ll be supported with fantastic learning and development and have the opportunity to grow and develop your career with us. We also have an early careers network to support you if you’re in your first few years of your career. We’ll also equip you with a benefits package that includes:

• Competitive bonus.
• Hybrid working.
• Save‑as‑you‑earn scheme.
• Private Medical and Life Assurance.
• Enhanced contributory pension scheme.
• Colleague discount.
• Discount platform including savings and cash back at numerous retailers, savings on gym membership, cycle to work scheme.

Our widely recognised wellbeing strategy is something we’re proud of at Wickes. As part of this, we offer a range of health and wellbeing benefits and support, including an Employee Assistance Programme, financial education & loans, and access to parental, menopause and fertility support. By giving you the support you need to do well at work, and the flexibility to make life work for you. We are giving you a career that doesn’t put your life on hold. Where you can be yourself, do your best work, and make a positive difference every day.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We aim to create an inclusive workplace with colleagues’ wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. We’re a Disability Confident Employer and committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We welcome applications from disabled people and are committed to providing an accessible recruitment process and workplace for everyone. If you require any support or reasonable adjustments, please let us know.