Senior Product Owner - Guidewire Policy Center

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JOB DESCRIPTION:
The Senior Product Owner serves as the customer proxy to the Agile team within the agile process and is the final authority for decisions regarding priority, business value, and functionality for all the work done by the Agile development team. The Agile team that this Product Owner will lead manages all enhancements to Policy Center and/or a digital portal application, both of which have been recently deployed, therefore the backlog is long and continues to grow. This Product Owner will work very closely with CNA leadership and users across multiple business areas in Specialty Lines as well as with 16 external business partners to ensure accuracy in prioritization, requirements and enhancement delivery, as well ensure that excellent support is provided to those external partners. This product owner participates on an Agile Release Train that continues to deploy new products in the base system; this Agile team will assume responsibility for new defects and enhancements post-production go-live for each product. In partnership with their Scrum Master, the Release Train Engineer, the Senior Product Manager, Portfolio and other technical leads this Product Owner will monitor metrics, suggest new ways of increasing quality, identify/verify business value delivered by the team and will also partner in the development of product scorecards as we migrate from a "Project" to "Product" delivery mindset.
The ideal candidate will come from the commercial insurance industry and possess the required Guidewire Policy Center experience. Additionally, experience with Atlassian Jira and Confluence preferred, but not required.
This remote role may be located anywhere in the continental US; however, you must have the flexibility to meet with overseas teams on a daily basis.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Performs a combination of duties in accordance with departmental guidelines:

• Supports one to two Agile Scrum teams on initiatives of medium to large complexity
• Owns, defines, and prioritizes the team backlog, establishes story acceptance criteria, drives content via prioritized user stories, obtains customer validation and accept stories, ensuring that the solution effectively addresses overall program priorities.
• A thought leader in Scrum ceremonies (such as daily standups, sprint review meetings, retrospective meetings, cross-team coordination, and etc.), alongside the Scrum Master, ensuring that Scrum Teams adhere to the Scrum values of courage, focus, commitment, respect and openness in delivering high quality solutions. Fosters an environment of continuous improvement / learning.
• Leading by example, facilitates Product Backlog Refinement including reviewing and updating backlog item definition and developing acceptance criteria and value statements, providing information to the team so they can establish technical feasibility and scope estimates, analyzing ways to split backlog items into smaller chunks of incremental value, helping to inform the enablersrequired to support new features and capabilities, and establishing their capacity allocation.
• Builds customer and user insights into all stages of the Scrum planning and execution process, ensuring the continuous validation of stories with Customers and business users.
• Proactively analyzes metrics, and recommends changes to the product based on data from feedback loops
• Inspire and motivate a team where the members constructively challenge each other, have a sense of ownership, and advocate for the right long-term decision making. Builds a trusting and safe environment within the team, customers, and other stakeholders.
• May collaborate with Product Managers and other Senior Product Owners and other Product Owners, to ensure Stories align to value, goals and objectives of overall program priorities.

May perform additional duties as assigned.
Reporting Relationship
Typically Director or above
Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Strong executor, proven across complex initiatives
• Champion for the adoption of new Agile technologies and methodologies
• Ability to build and maintain collaborative relationships with stakeholders
• Highly collaborative with good conflict resolutions skills
• Proven ability to enact change quickly
• Willingness to develop Agile team members by inspiring, encouraging and providing constructive feedback
• Solid leadership skill
• Proven ability to work directly with Product Management, business stakeholders and technical/product teams
• Domain knowledge of solutions being developed

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience
• Typically a minimum of three to five years as a Product Owner or equivalent role coming from the commercial insurance industry
• Experience with insurance or finance based products
• Successful track record with Agile methodologies
• Applicable certifications preferred (e.g. SAFe PO/PM, CSPO or PSPO)

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CNA is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the recruitment process. To request an accommodation, please contact [email protected] .