Product Manager, Championships & Communications

Job Function: The NCAA is currently looking for a Product Manager who will drive the future of business and technology solutions for the 90+ NCAA Championships & the Public Relations area. This senior level role is responsible for driving the product vision, strategy and roadmap for these business areas within the NCAA. This includes understanding and evaluating business needs, goals and objectives in order to articulate what the business needs and why (the business case and/or problem statement) to an Agile team who will identify how to solve those needs. The Product Manager serves as the voice of the customer and represents the perspective of the various user personas and their journey through the business processes and product capabilities.

Job Responsibilities:

Stakeholder Engagement

• Integrate capability mapping analysis into project planning and strategic roadmap development through partner immersion techniques.
• Collaborate across business functions to identify opportunities for synergy, advocate for shared responsibility, and guide organizational change.
• Participate in monthly partner portfolio reviews with leadership to advance capability needs and prioritization.
• Educate internal and external stakeholders, providing strategic insights about partner objectives, and articulating solutions, timelines, and constraints.
• Surface, shape and profile opportunities with highest value to advance organizational goals.

Business Architecture

• Analyze data to recommend the best path for solving business problems that may include process improvement, systems enhancement, user training, and technology procurement.
• Craft clear, concise, and compelling messaging to engage and educate partners on complex IT concepts in an easy-to-understand way, as well as understand the tools and channels to best deliver messaging.
• Create technology business models illustrating how products, operations, and systems interoperate within the organization.
• Coach business partners to articulate functional need through applied business architecture methodology to ensure results-oriented deliverables.

Product Ownership

• Ensure technical direction aligns with business goals and guides the product overall roadmap.
• Facilitate business case development (what we want to do)
• Drives the product vision to the Agile teams via the creation of Epic/Feature/User Story(s) based on the defined business case (to clarify what and why) with clear acceptance criteria
• Maintain the product backlog via grooming and prioritization exercises to relay voice of the partner.
• Participate in Release Definition and planning of epic/feature/user story delivery
• Validate/approve the delivered Features/User Stories from the agile team upon completion and ensure they meet high-quality software standards.
• Participate in monthly portfolio reviews.
• Manage the Agile development team by leveraging leadership skills to guide and inspire the team but allow the team to determine how to deliver the solution.
• Provide mentorship by utilizing technical expertise
• Encourage technical innovation to deliver on business needs and solutions
• Holds vendors providing outsourced Agile team resources accountable to adhere to defined standards and deliver upon defined SLA’s
• Other duties as assigned.

Job Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree or combination of education and equivalent work experience
• 3-5 years of Business Analysis/Architecture or equivalent experience
• 3-5 years of IT Software Development and/or Delivery experience. 10+ years of experience highly preferred.
• Experience with UX/UI principles preferred
• Experience implementing large-scale, complex business and IT projects
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Ability to drive innovative solutions
• Creative problem-solving skills and the ability to think strategically
• Experience with Agile methodologies and tools (Scrum preferred)
• Estimated travel required: < 10%
• This position will be based out of the national office in Indianapolis, Indiana. Current work environment is hybrid; 2 days in the office and 3 days are remote.

Key Competencies:

• Drives Vision and Purpose: Communicates a compelling picture of the vision and strategy that motivates others to action by: Talking about future possibilities in a positive way. Creating milestones and symbolizing support behind the vision. Showing personal commitment to the vision.
• Effective Communication: Can exchange ideas, thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and data so that the message is understood with clarity and purpose.
• Stakeholder Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external stakeholders, gets first-hand stakeholder information and uses it for improvements in products and services, acts with stakeholders in mind, established and maintains effective relationships with stakeholders and gains their trust and respect through honesty, integrity, authenticity, and inclusivity.
• Motivating Others: Creates a climate in which people want to do their best, pushes tasks and decisions down, empowers others, invites input and shares ownership and visibility, helps individuals feel the value they bring, is someone people like working for and with.
• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly, can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately, has broad knowledge and perspective, is future oriented, can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods, can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
  
  

Core Values:

• Leadership | We actively listen and continually strive to provide vital solutions, counsel and advocacy for student-athletes and intercollegiate athletics.
• Inclusion | We seek and incorporate different perspectives and experiences to drive innovation and impact.
• Communication | We commit to an environment of openness to build trust and make timely decisions.
• Collaboration | We work together, based on mutual respect, to lead and serve our stakeholders.
• Accountability | We take ownership for our actions and results to add value every day.