Manufacturing Product Owner

Kimberly-Clark - Chicago, IL

Full-time - Mid Level

Chicago, IL

Paper Manufacturing

About the position

The Manufacturing Product Owner at Kimberly-Clark is responsible for managing the product backlog and ensuring that product development aligns with the company's vision and strategy. This role involves collaborating with Product Managers and stakeholders to define product requirements, prioritize tasks, and support the Scrum team in delivering high-quality products. The position emphasizes a performance culture and is integral to driving innovation and growth within the organization.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with Product Managers and stakeholders to define product backlog according to the product vision, strategy, and roadmap.
• Ensure that the product backlog items solve business problems identified by the Product Manager and stakeholders.
• Accountable for Product Backlog Management by creating and clearly communicating product backlog items with stakeholders, product managers, and Scrum team.
• Maintain a healthy and transparent product backlog to ensure that the scrum team has adequate visibility and understanding of upcoming work.
• Create and maintain effective release plans based on the delivery team's available capacity.
• Set release goals, in coordination with the Product Manager and the delivery team, and provide support so that they can deliver on their commitments.
• Collaborate with the Scrum team to identify dependencies of product backlog items on other teams and coordinate with those teams to align on release plans and timelines.
• Continuously refine Product Backlog Items together with the Scrum Team and other subject matter experts.
• Clearly define priorities for the scrum team and craft the sprint goal together with them.
• Provide support to the scrum team while they deliver on the promised value.
• Actively work to address impediments to improve the team's flow of work during sprint execution.
• Work with the scrum team to ensure quality of work meets standards of excellence.
• Review sprint backlog items and provide feedback about them to the scrum team.
• Actively participate in agile events to represent stakeholder needs to the team.
• Coordinate resources as needed for planning and execution of Product Backlog Items.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Business Partners, and Stakeholders to plan Sprint Reviews, user acceptance testing, and rollout/launch of the release/product.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree, ideally in IT or a business discipline.
• 15+ years demonstrable experience with manufacturing processes, hands-on experience in designing and developing end-to-end manufacturing processes and solutions.
• 4+ years' experience as a Product Owner or 7+ years as a Senior Business Analyst in an agile environment.
• Experience with Key Collaborative Events and Processes like Demand Intake, Demand/Requests Assessment, Quarterly Planning, Product Backlog Management, Sprint Reviews, and Product Demos.
• 3-5+ years demonstrable experience mastering product development using human-centered design process.
• Proven success working with self-managed, virtual team members.
• Strong virtual meeting facilitation, interpersonal communication, training, negotiation, and presentation skills.
• Established background in launching software/solutions or services in partnership with business and engineering teams.
• High degree of proficiency in wireframes, prototyping, iterative development, understanding of agile principles.
• Ability to inspire a team to act as a small business jointly accountable for its product.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in using backlog tools (Azure DevOps, Craft).
• Outstanding organizational, communication, relationship-building, and collaboration skills at all levels.
• Sharp analytical and problem-solving skills, prioritization and time management skills.
• Proven experience as a change agent to engage, influence, and inspire partners and stakeholders.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• On-site gym
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Flexible Savings and spending accounts
• Diverse income protection insurance options
• Programs and support for education, adoption, relocation, or temporary childcare