Senior Product Owner (Hotel Operations Guest Service Products)

Position: Senior Product Owner (Hotel Operations Guest Service Products)
Location: Bethesda, MD (Hybrid)

Interview Mode: Webcam Interview

NOTE:

Hybrid – 1-3 days in office

About The Role:
The Senior Product Owner Hotel Operations Guest Service Products is responsible for managing innovative and emerging products within the Hotel Operations and Guest Service Products Team. This role will collaborate with business partners and engineering teams to maintain a well-groomed product backlog of feature enhancements that includes refined user stories ready for development and solid timelines. The Senior Product Owner will demonstrate management skills and leadership in a highly matrixed environment and must be comfortable working with multiple stakeholders on numerous competing priorities. The candidate will be moderately technical with a proven record of creative solutioning and problem solving in addition to developing multi-year technology roadmaps for products.

Core Work Activities:
Technical Product Owner:

• Maintain a well-groomed product backlog of features to include refined user stories that are ready for development
• Help define new product features and optimizations of existing ones, and incorporate them into product roadmaps
• Support the definition of guest service product requirements and development of the product roadmap
• Provide clear vision and scope documentation, use cases, workflows, and wire-frames to support development
• Coordinate testing, acceptance and delivery of enhancements between vendor and MI business partners
• Coordinate with support teams for defect resolution

Demonstrating and Applying Discipline Knowledge:

• Provides technical expertise and support to persons inside and outside of the department
• Demonstrates knowledge of job-relevant issues, products, systems, and processes
• Demonstrates knowledge of function-specific procedures
• Keeps up-to-date technically and applies new knowledge to job
• Knowledge of and understanding of complex algorithms

Additional Responsibilities :

• Proven ability to lead and work with cross-functional teams in support of specific business priorities
• Ability to solve problems quickly, think strategically, and drive data-driven decision making
• Ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects and aggressive timelines
• Strong interpersonal skills and success in cross-functional relationship-building at all levels, ability to drive consensus through influence and fact-based approach
• Effective written and oral communications skills with sensitivity to global communication needs
• Thrives in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
• Demonstrates self-confidence, energy and enthusiasm in leading and influencing teams
• Proficiency in Office software products and digital collaboration tools

Candidate Profile:
Education and Experience Required:

• 7+ years'''''''''''''''' experience in information technology application design or development
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience
• 4+ years'''''''''''''''' experience as a product owner or product manager experience
• Ability to explain product vision, business objective, technical feasibility, define requirements
• Ability to drive engineering accountability for technical implementation against defined features and requirements
• Excellent communicator, both written and spoken
• Experience with Agile Development methodology and tools (CSPO or CSM certification a plus)
• Experience with project management tools such as JIRA, Confluence and SmartSheets
• Demonstrated ability to deliver results under challenging conditions, particularly when faced with complexity, ambiguity, and aggressive timelines
• Demonstrated ability to assess customer needs, creatively approach solutions, and decide and influence appropriate courses of action
• Strong project management skills (PMI certification a plus)
• Strong process management, negotiating, influencing, and problem-resolution skills

Preferred:

• Familiarity with hospitality industry applications and processes
• Ability to manage and work with on-shore and off-shore service providers
• Familiarity with Client''''''''''''''''s existing information architecture, application portfolio, and information management methodology
• Graduate degree

Management Competencies:
Leadership:

• Adaptability – Maintains performance level under pressure or when experiencing changes or challenges in the workplace.
• Communication – Conveys information and ideas to others in a convincing and engaging manner through a variety of methods.
• Problem Solving and Decision Making - Identifies and understands issues, problems, and opportunities; obtains and compares information from different sources to draw conclusions, develops and evaluates alternatives and solutions, solves problems, and chooses a course of action.
• Professional Demeanor - Exhibits behavioral styles that convey confidence and command respect from others; makes a good first impression and represents the company in alignment with its values.
• Strategy Development - Develops business plans by exploring and systematically evaluating opportunities with the greatest potential for producing positive results; ensures successful preparation and execution of business plans through effective planning, organizing, and on-going evaluation processes.

Managing Execution:

• Building and Contributing to Teams - Participates as a member of a team to move toward the completion of common goals while fostering cohesion and collaboration among team members.
• Strategy Execution – Ensures successful execution across of business plans designed to maximize customer satisfaction, profitability, and market share through effective planning, organizing, and on-going evaluation processes.
• Driving for Results - Sets high standards of performance for self and/or others; assumes responsibility for work objectives; initiates, focuses, and monitors the efforts of self and/or others toward the accomplishment goals; proactively takes action and goes beyond what is required.
• Planning and Organizing - Gathers information and resources required to set a plan of action for self and/or others; prioritizes and arranges work requirements to accomplish goals and ensure work is completed.

Building Relationships:

• Customer Relationships - Develops and sustains relationships based on an understanding of customer/stakeholder needs and actions consistent with the company''''''''''''''''s service standards.
• Coworker Relationships - Interacts with others in a way that builds openness, trust, and confidence in the pursuit of organizational goals and lasting relationships.
• Global Mindset - Supports employees and business partners with diverse styles, abilities, motivations, and/or cultural perspectives; utilizes differences to drive innovation, engagement and enhance business results; and ensures employees are given the opportunity to contribute to their full potential.

Generating Talent and Organizational Capability :

• Organizational Capability - Evaluates and adapts the structure of assignments and work processes to best fit the needs and/or support the goals of an organizational unit.
• Talent Management - Provides support and feedback to help individuals develop and strengthen skills and abilities needed to accomplish work objectives.

Learning and Applying Professional Expertise:

• Applied Learning - Seeks and makes the most of learning opportunities to improve performance of self and/or others.
• Business Acumen - Understands and utilizes business information to manage everyday operations and generate innovative solutions to approach business and administrative challenges.
• Technical Acumen - Understands and utilizes professional skills and knowledge in a specific functional area to conduct and manage everyday business operations and generate innovative solutions to approach function-specific work challenges.
• Basic Competencies - Fundamental competencies required for accomplishing basic work activities.

• Basic Computer Skills - Uses basic computer hardware and software (e.g., personal computers, word processing software, Internet browsers, etc.).
• Mathematical Reasoning - Adds, subtracts, multiplies, or divides quickly, correctly, and in a way that allows one to solve work-related issues.
• Oral Comprehension - Listens to and understands information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Reading Comprehension – Understands written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Writing - Communicates effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.