Experience Lead (Experience Product Owner)

Why Wellmark: We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we’ve built our reputation on over 80 years’ worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors–our members. If you’re passionate about joining an organization working hard to put its members first, to provide best-in-class service, and one that is committed to sustainability and innovation, consider applying today!   

Why Wellmark Technology? Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work. 

As the experience lead, you will serve as the conduit between the enterprise and member experience team, responsible for Wellmark’s user and member experience roadmap for a defined functional domain of user experiences. You will help the team deliver innovative-technical solutions to solve experience problems and focus on the voice of the customer by integrating measurement, analytics, and research into all experience design activities. In addition, you will create high performing experience product teams through increasing team efficiencies and driving accountability to meet team deliverables. You will motivate and facilitate the team through self-organization, high quality, and team ownership. Lastly, you will enjoy collaborating as a team to solve complex design and business issues from concept to execution and operation. 

Preferred: 

• Prior experience from a leading consumer brand recognized by customers for experience 
• Consumer product or internet software product management experience 
• Three or more years working in or with lean and agile software delivery teams 
• Prior experience working with design professionals, within a design thinking process. Preferably experience with human centered design (HCD).  
• Prior experience working as a product owner, including estimating, sprint, leading scrum activities, sprint reviews and retrospective meetings 

Required: 

• Bachelor's Degree or direct and applicable work experience 
• Minimum 4 years industry experience, including experience with agile business analysis, including documentation of features, user stories and test requirements, process documentation 
• Experience engaging and influencing leadership and other stakeholders important in decision making process 
• Experience with design thinking, and lean and agile software delivery 
• Ability to make data-driven business decisions 
• The ability to work well in a team environment and be capable of building and maintaining positive relationships with other staff, departments, and customers 
• Ability to identify approaches, risks, mitigation strategies to meet functional user needs 
• Demonstrated consulting skills, including excellent communication, collaboration and interpersonal skills 
• Experience in Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) 
• Travel limited, 5%  

a. Execute the member experience product roadmap priorities for the assigned functional domain of user experiences. Using strong business relationships, collaborate and partner with stakeholders to bring together a cross functional, highly matrixed team for delivery of the objectives and roadmap. 

b. Serve as subject matter expert for assigned member experience user base by requesting and interpreting research/analytics and voice of the customer, understanding personas and segmentation of users, in order to create solutions that meet those needs. Incorporate research and feedback into decision-making and iterate on features and functionality to achieve member experience outcomes. Analyze performance data and make suggestions for improvement after specific member experience solutions are launched. 

c. Partner with leadership, technical experts, user experience design experts, business process execution teams and other stakeholders to create logical feature/functionality release plans for assigned member experience product domain. 

d. As owner of the member experience product lifecycle for assigned domain manage process from capturing requirements, through execution and into optimization after member experiences launch. Collaborate with stakeholders and technologists to build the member experiences and ensure performance to the outcome. 

e. Conduct member experience ideation and design thinking sessions in cooperation with appropriate stakeholders to ensure goals are accounted for in the experience roadmap. Work collaboratively with the Experience Manager and other Experience Leads to ensure that requirements align with member experience goals and roadmap. Collaborate with UX Designers to ensure that member experience designs align with user goals. 

f. Ensure an open channel for sharing information to provide all stakeholders with a voice and means to share relevant facts and feedback. Seek to understand the root causes of issues and tackle them, rather than just the symptoms. Initiate open and honest coaching conversations at all levels and move easily between big picture thinking and managing relevant detail. 

g. Seek to continually optimize the performance of the team, recognizing areas of strength and improvement and employing appropriate coaching/development techniques to resolve impediments. Partner with Agile coaches and Scrum Masters to achieve high performing teams. 

h. Works with the leadership to provide feedback and escalate team impediments, assisting with resourcing activities and team growth. 

i. Assist with internal communications (to other teams, stakeholders, project management, governance, and leadership) and external communications (including vendors) to ensure transparency. Collaborate with other teams, stakeholders, managers and vendors on planning and release alignment as needed. 

j. Other duties as assigned. 

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

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