Product Owner, Supply Chain Accounting

Sherwin-Williams - Cleveland, OH

Full-time - Mid Level

Cleveland, OH

Chemical Manufacturing

About the position

The Product Owner for Supply Chain Accounting will play a pivotal role in the Global Transformation Office, focusing on the development of new product concepts and features that align with strategic objectives. This position requires a deep understanding of the supply chain accounting processes and the ability to assess product progress through collaboration with Delivery Leads and Scrum Masters. The Product Owner will be responsible for creating user stories that communicate the product's development and its alignment with business outcomes to Business Executives and Leadership. Prioritization of these stories is crucial to ensure that the team focuses on delivering maximum value in line with the Global Transformation Office strategy. In addition to strategic and technical execution of business user stories, the Product Owner will coordinate Business Process Governance with relevant stakeholders. This role involves working closely with the Portfolio Product Leadership Team to establish agility strategies and funding requirements. The Product Owner will also conduct formal performance reviews, recognizing individual and team successes, and will need to comprehend key business objectives to make informed decisions regarding product functionality. Collaboration is key in this role, as the Product Owner will work with cross-functional teams to ensure a shared understanding of requirements for successful implementation. This includes engaging with program management, process management, data management, change management, and customers. The Product Owner will partner with process owners to ensure proper execution of processes during project initiatives across various workstreams such as Order to Cash, Source to Pay, and Record to Report. The role also requires the Product Owner to gather user feedback to enhance product features and usability, manage inter-team dependencies, and escalate issues as necessary. Grooming the product backlog, tracking progress towards product releases, and communicating the product vision and roadmap to the Scrum team are essential tasks. The Product Owner will also coordinate with the Scrum team to set release dates and scopes, deliver comprehensive product training, and collaborate with other product owners as needed. Budget preparation and planning for new initiatives, as well as developing test scripts for product testing, are also part of the responsibilities.

Responsibilities

• Develop new concepts for products and features in alignment with the objectives of the Global Transformation Office.
• Create user stories to share the Product's development and progress against business outcomes with Business Executives and the Leadership.
• Prioritize all stories to ensure work focuses on those with maximum value that align with the Global Transformation Office strategy.
• Responsible for strategic and technical execution (end-to-end) of business user stories and coordinate the Business Process Governance with the right stakeholders.
• Work with the Portfolio Product Leadership Team to set the agility strategy and funding requirements.
• Conduct/support formal performance reviews, celebrating hard work, individual and team success.
• Comprehend key business objectives and requirements of a product to make final decisions on functionality.
• Provide feedback to the work of the Product Manager to help them define a product differentiation strategy.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams/processes to ensure a shared understanding of requirements for successful implementation.
• Work in partnership with process owners to ensure the process is executed appropriately during project initiatives.
• Understand what is important to the customer, data standards, process standards; collect feedback from users and incorporate user feedback to enhance product features and usability.
• Understand and support inter-team dependencies and escalate issues with the coordination of the product manager.
• Groom the product backlog, breaking down epics and estimating user stories.
• Track the progress towards the release of a product and keep the project and process teams apprised of the same.
• Communicate the product vision, roadmap and business intent to the Scrum/development team and ensure close collaboration with the development team.
• Coordinate with Scrum team, set and communicate release date and scope.
• Deliver comprehensive product training that aligns with the organization's change management plan.
• Coordinate cross functionally with other product owners in various workstreams as needed.
• Prepare and plan budgets to determine how to use company resources to launch new initiatives.
• Collaborate with Key users and SMEs to ensure the processes enrichment and the enhancements of the IT solution.
• Develop test scripts and test data to thoroughly test the product solution and work with the testing team to identify test scripts to be automated for product and regression testing.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree required; Six Sigma, Lean training preferred.
• 5+ years in an agile delivery framework, or requirement development or Product Owner role.
• 5+ years Costing or Supply Chain Accounting experience.
• Prior knowledge of key process and technical products within Order to Cash, Source to Pay, Planning/Manufacturing/Inventory, Acquire to Retire, and Record to Report.
• Knowledge of ERP operating systems tools and databases.
• Experience working with Oracle system.
• Experience with, and strong understanding of Product Ownership for Agile Scrum Teams.
• Proven ability to analyze complex cross functional business process and defining integrated user stories using industry standard techniques.
• Experience working as part of an Agile Release Train in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

Nice-to-haves

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, tailoring to audiences.
• Excellent critical thinking skills and demonstrated ability to proactively manage stakeholder expectations.
• Ability to work in distributed teams and develop multi-level relationships.
• Proven ability to manage dependencies and shifting priorities.
• Ability to support multiple projects, facilitate meetings, and follow up action items.
• Ability to lead and influence without direct authority.
• Ability to utilize Continuous Improvement tools and processes.
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
• Excellent communication skills to be able to influence peers and executives, as well as external partners.
• Experience defining and leading the delivery of an API portfolio that is consumable by both internal and external parties.
• Strong work ethic demonstrated attention to detail, excellent time management and organizational skills.
• Ability to work both independently and within a close team environment.
• Ability to listen to and understand business needs.

Benefits

• Relocation Package available within company policy.
• Full-time regular employment with competitive salary range.