Job Title: Product Owner

Department /
Insight & Ideation
Business Unit:

Reports to (job title): Head of Ideation

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the English Propositions Team.

As Product Owner, you will have the unique opportunity of joining a newly integrated,
ambitious, customer-centric team whose goal is to empower learning and enable better
results for our learners and teachers across the globe, through our world-class learning and
assessment Propositions portfolio.

As part of the English Product Group, the Propositions team play an integral role in the
development and delivery of the business strategy. They are driving digital transformation
forward in a disrupted market and looking at how best to use data and technology to provide
high-quality solutions founded in pedagogical excellence for our customers.

CONTEXT:

As Product Owner in the Ideation team you will work directly with agile scrum teams to
develop early-stage prototypes, products and propositions to explore opportunities, answer
questions and help to define capability and product roadmaps with a focus on the future
needs of our customers and to help Cambridge achieve its strategic ambitions.

JOB PURPOSE
Deliver the global propositions and sector portfolio strategies by managing one or more early
stage products by:

• Leading scrum teams through ideation and prototyping to achieve maximum value for
customers, users and key stakeholders.
• Ensuring that customer/user requirements are prioritised, and key dependencies
understood, to focus development resources and feed insights back into product
plans and strategy.
• Working collaboratively to support development of new products that will drive our
growth in future.
• Anticipating changing customer needs and future trends and adapting development
plans accordingly.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Provide effective leadership for the scrum team, setting priorities and driving urgency
to create the conditions for a high-performing empowered product team.
• Ensure that customer/user requirements are prioritised and key dependencies
understood, to focus development resources and maximise team outcomes.
• Build the strategic vision and roadmap guided by customer and market requirements
in collaboration with the Product Manager.
 • Manage agile product development, including making recommendations to continue,
pivot or pause early-stage products.
• Be a point of contact, when necessary, between Propositions and Group Technology
to gather and communicate requirements.
• Work with UX to ensure the features of the product meet the customers’ needs and
deliver an outstanding user experience.
• Undertake customer focused research and iterative user testing, to inform the detail
of the requirements and test throughout the development process.
• Work with the Scrum Master /dev lead to ensure the technical team is able to deliver
iterative development efficiently and effectively.
• Collaborate with external suppliers and internal stakeholders. Represent and
communicate about the early-stage product to the wider organisation and make
recommendations on development options as required.
• Manage product development budgets and look for efficiencies. Input into business
cases and forecasting.
• Drive innovation in everything we do and bring a creative, solution-focused mindset
to the team.

KNOWLEDGE & QUALIFICATIONS

• A degree or equivalent
• Appropriate accreditation (e.g., certified Product Owner) or relevant experience
• An excellent understanding of digital technologies and software
• Knowledge of language learning and assessment industry including experience of
key markets, key business relationships, strategic alliances and competitors is an
advantage, but not essential.

EXPERIENCE
• Experience developing/launching digital products in an agile, iterative environment
• Experience managing teams, stakeholders and working in a matrix structure
• Experience analysing data and insights to inform product development
• Experience of business processes, business planning and managing P&Ls

SKILLS
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills
• Proven ability to build key relationships both internally and externally communicating
effectively and diplomatically with technical and non-technical roles and at all levels of
seniority
• Strong numeracy skills and ability to use and interpret data to influence decision-
making
• Strong business acumen
• Takes initiative on finding innovative solutions to complex problems to meet and
exceed targets.
• Excellent organisational skills and comfortable working in a fast-paced, changing
environment, taking decisions quickly and identifying resources to move projects
forward
• An enthusiasm to stay up to date in your area of expertise and to engage in continuous
professional development.