Associate Product Owner

This opportunity is focused on supporting the data exchange and data transfer needs for multiple product teams and external business partners. This includes complex systems and middleware enterprise service bus (ESB) functionality utilized by a variety of applications across the enterprise. This is crucial to the core of our business. Success in this role will require strong cross-functional collaboration and strategic partnerships. The Associate Product Owner will work closely with various agile teams and will need to effectively collaborate build consensus and drive initiatives with key support teams across multiple departments. The Associate Product Owner develops and conveys the products vision to the agile team outlining and prioritizing work based on business value realization metrics. The ideal candidate will prioritize high-value work and align with our programs performance objectives to maximize impact and efficiency.

Wellmark is in a period of change. We are rolling out formal product teams throughout the organization. This is a brand-new position and you will help continue the foundational work of defining this ESB product. Our change journey toward adopting agile principles a product-focused mindset and a culture of iterative progress will empower our employees to improve the impact on the healthcare industry.

Qualifications :

Preferred Qualifications :

• Prior experience supporting cross-functional teams (either formal or informal). Ability to coach and mentor others through guidance or feedback. Experience with conflict management and resolution.
• Executive presence and comfortability influencing and gaining consensus among executive stakeholders.
• Product development product management or similar experience that reflects general knowledge of the product development lifecycle (including measurement and management) strategic planning and ability to collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to create innovative data-driven solutions. Understanding of customer (client and member) needs and ability to translate these into competitive products and services.
• Prior experience in a Product Owner role (either formal or informal) operating within a SAFe organization including demonstrated experience with agile and / or lean product management competencies of value measurement optimization and eliminating waste. Experience using agile requirements management tools (e.g. Jira or Azure DevOps).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to articulate complex information or solutions to stakeholders. Exposure to negotiation skills and techniques.
• Ability to identify issues or inconsistencies; obtains relevant information relates and compares data from different sources and identifyies alternative solutions.
• Demonstrated critical thinking problem solving / troubleshooting and continuous process improvement skills.
• Analytical problem-solving skills and attention to detail; ability to identify and approach complex problems from different angles and apply technical knowledge to policies / procedures.

Associate Product Owner Minimum Required Qualifications :

Additional Information :

Job Responsibilities

a. Maximize the products value and the work of the agile team by working with them to ensure they have a clear vision of the priority and value of the work.

b. Act as a strong informal dotted-line leader and mentor to the agile team through effective two-way communication helping employees learn new skills identifying and managing resistance and being an advocate.

c. Serve as the voice of the customer by creating a shared understanding of the product vision and customer needs through consistent communications with the team.

d. Active leader in the agile teams scrum events including agile ceremonies such as stand-ups story refinements backlog grooming and team retrospectives.

e. Lead iteration review meetings to demonstrate the outcomes achieved to the product teams stakeholders or customers.

f. Ensure the team understands the product priorities and executes the highest value work through lean and agile product prioritization methods (e.g WSJF MoSCoW).

g. Obtain insights prioritize and balance multiple stakeholder priorities and synthesize complex information to maintain product team alignment with the vision.

h. Partner with stakeholders and customers to curate the product vision product stack and features to ensure that the next increment of value is executed.

i. Author the product roadmap features by creating well-defined product requirements including features user stories and acceptance criteria.

j. Partner with stakeholders to assess value and prioritize features and stories to ensure work focuses on those with a maximum value aligned to the product strategy.

k. Manage against and participate in the refinement of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) defined for the product team during each planning interval.

l. Evaluate progress at the end of each iteration including the ability to define Minimum Viable Products (MVP).

m. Seek quantitative and qualitative information to comprehensively understand where the product teams solutions are not optimizing value.

n. Apply change management practices and tools in pre-planning and planning (features and user stories) to ensure impacted stakeholders and employees are prepared and equipped to adopt changes; consult with the Change Practitioner supporting Agile Release Train (ART) to monitor change readiness and adoption across the ART.

o. Understand the impact the assigned product has on the customer and work collaboratively to ensure any change is properly managed.

p. Obtain objective insights through research and analytics to analyze how a customer of the product is adopting consuming and benefiting from the product features.

q. Other duties as assigned.

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

Please inform us if you meet the definition of a Covered DoD official.

At this time Wellmark is not considering applicants for this position that require any type of immigration sponsorship (additional work authorization or permanent work authorization) now or in the future to work in the United States. This includes but IS NOT LIMITED TO : F1-OPT F1-CPT H-1B TN L-1 J-1 etc. For additional information around work authorization needs please refer to the following resources : Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants

Remote Work : No

Employment Type : Full-time

Key Skills

Marketing,Quality Assurance,Agile,Product Demos,Analysis Skills,Jira,Project Management,Product Management,Qualitative Analysis,Confluence,Internet Of Things,Product Development

Experience : years

Vacancy : 1