Product Manager

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The Football Association [The FA] is the not-for-profit governing body of football in England. It is responsible for promoting and developing every level of the game, from grassroots through to the professional game, and generates significant revenue to support investment into English football each year.

Digital Technology

HAVE THE DIGITAL WORLD AT YOUR FEET

Technology is key to the FA's transformation. From supporting grassroots via our day-to-day digital presence, to using data-led insights to drive the game - to developing future focused platforms for professional football - our Digital Technology team is central to our future.

Whilst investment in technology to make the experience of all participants relevant and easy, is already at the heart of how we can serve the game, we are looking to invest even further and deliver in a more iterative way, forming product lines and fully moving towards an Agile, Product Management framework.

By 2024, we will upgrade and simplify our core football administration system (moving from Whole Game System to Platform for Football) and provide enhanced capability to England teams.

Our product lines cover all those that RUN, PLAY, LEARN as well as our responsibility to REGULATE, WIN and leverage DATA whilst also ensuring sufficient focus on the CORE BUSINESS online and PLATFORMS that support each product and service across the organisation.

Join us in helping to DECIDE THE GAME and HAVE THE DIGITAL WORLD AT YOUR FEET.

The Role and Key Accountabilities

This role determines and oversees delivery of the strategy and roadmap for a number of products to achieve business outcomes and financial objectives. There are four key areas of responsibility:

Understand the customer and market - continually research to understand customer needs and wants, and market trends; gather feedback, proactively identify and test new features and product enhancements

Meet business goals - work with stakeholders to ensure products and solutions meet the economic business goals established by the relevant FA divisions and that ROI is maximised

Own the product strategy - continuously refine the product vision, strategy and roadmap, and drive life cycle management efforts to inform all stakeholders and guide the product development team. This includes the removal of technical debt, delivery of non-functional requirements and maintenance of continued secure operations

Steer product development - guide the lifelong development of the products, using shared platforms as far as appropriate, with a strong focus on the quality of the experience for all users. Note day to day/sprint to sprint this is usually led by the Product Owner.

Key Accountabilities:

Understand the customer and market

Undertake market research and continuous exploration to continually and deeply understand customer and market needs

Monitor and evaluate product performance and proactively champion product improvements.

Proactively keep up-to-date with how world class comparable and adjacent businesses are using emerging and mature digital technologies to enable and support achieve FA goals and competitive advantage

Meet business goals

Develop a deep understanding of business goals and processes; translate corporate strategies into clear outcomes for digital products

Develop strong relationships and regularly communicate with product stakeholders and customers to shape the product strategy and surface and prioritize needs

Ensure alignment and adherence to regulatory, security, corporate, financial, technology and architectural standards

Manage investment decision making and finances for the product, taking a return-on-investment approach to increasing the value while minimizing product costs

Own the product strategy

Develop and communicate the program vision and roadmap - continuously develops and communicates the vision and roadmap for the product

Approve the sprint plan - the Product Owner owns the product backlog and detailed requirements, including detailed features, architecture, data validation/integration and quality work, non-functional requirements, technical debt and enabler work but typically seeks Product Manager input on the sprint plan to confirm it aligns with the product strategy

Determine internal and contract/external resources and skills required for the product team to deliver on the product roadmap

Contribute to the business area's annual budgeting and strategic planning process

Steer product development

Guide the product engineering team to scope, plan and deliver work, applying established delivery methodologies (e.g., agile methods) and best practices (e.g. reusability).

Proactively identify and resolve blockers to achieve business objectives for the product, including technical and resourcing challenges.

Define, track, and communicate OKRs for the product to measure performance and contribution to business goals and strategy.

Ensure the development and implementation of a suitable test approach, including garnering feedback and insights on the digital product and data during the development process, through beta to general release

What we are looking for

Essential

Significant experience in product management roles and delivered compelling and sustainable consumer grade digital experiences and relationships

Identifies, opens, drives and delivers opportunities towards a strategic vision

Experience coaching and leading team members and other colleagues

Excellent ability to listen, support, collaborate with collagues and supports the development of FA people including any direct reports

Demonstrable ability to be an excellent role model and to encourage others to exhibit an organisations values and behaviours

Excellent ability to influence external and internal stakeholders effectively

Demonstrable experience in engaging colleagues to ensure the product vision is achieved

Excellent persuasive skills, including the ability to bring people around to your way of thinking if required including (may include senior stakeholders)

Excellent ability to develop relationships

Demonstrable experience engaging effectively with senior and demanding stakeholders to build and deliver strategic plans

Experienced in working through and achieving results with diverse stakeholders

Desirable

Degree or equivalent

Excellent knowledge of business to consumer trends (e.g. consumer packaged goods, travel and hospitality) and experience of deploying and driving adoption and building digital relationships at scale using apps and/or mobile digital products

Experience of driving change in operating models to transform the delivery of Digital / Technology services and associated benefits

Experience of using consumer data to provide tailored and personalised experiences to customers and achieve a more engaging relationship

Good managerial accounting skills to ensure that budgets are managed

What we can offer you

An exciting and challenging role within a changing, dynamic and world-renowned sports organisation.

Attractive benefits and a competitive salary.

Please be aware that unless you are on a homebased contract, your contract with The FA will specify a fixed location of either Wembley Stadium, St. George's Park or our Processing Centre.

We currently work within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary.

The Football Association Group promotes inclusion and diversity, and welcomes applications from everyone. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process please mention this in your application.