Product Owner/Portfolio Manager

DataStaff, Inc. is currently seeking a Product Owner/Portfolio Manager for a long-term contract opportunity with one of our direct clients in Des Moines, IA

*This position is hybrid *LOCAL CANDIDATES ONLY*

Job Description:

Our client is seeking a Product Owner/Portfolio Manager. The position involves close collaboration with business and IT management, oversight of cross-functional fusion teams, and a commitment to continuous improvement driven by performance data and user feedback.

Responsibilities:

• Manage a portfolio of IT products and applications, ensuring successful completion and alignment with business needs for both internal and external users
• Serve as a Product Owner to guide products through all lifecycle stages, ensuring efficiency, quality, and alignment with strategic goals.
• Work with business SMEs, internal teams, external agencies, and vendors to define product scope, identify IT-enabled solutions, and support procurement and implementation processes.
• Create and prioritize product backlogs and maintain roadmaps that align with long-term IT strategies and changing user and state needs.
• Oversee product releases, ensure readiness for deployment, monitor performance, gather feedback, and manage risks affecting delivery or budget.
• Collaborate with business and IT leadership to define and track performance metrics, ensuring all products and processes meet state, federal, and IT governance requirements.
• Manage relationships with vendors and service providers, overseeing performance, resolving issues related to interoperability, and ensuring adherence to service level agreements (SLAs) and availability targets.
• Oversee product IT financials, including budget planning and monitoring, while providing leadership with regular updates on product status, risks, and strategic roadmap progress.
• Lead and manage cross-functional fusion teams, ensuring effective collaboration among IT, vendors, and business units to deliver solutions that align with business needs and budget constraints.
• Partner with DoIT supervisors to allocate appropriate technical resources, monitor team performance, and provide ongoing support to fusion team staff.
• Facilitate agile meetings and lead sprint reviews, user story development, ensuring team alignment on priorities and presenting outputs to stakeholders.
• Use feedback and metrics to identify product needs and collaborate on acceptance criteria, testing, and feature delivery.
• Collaborate with Executive Technology Officers (ETOs) and product teams to prioritize and manage product development efforts, ensuring alignment with agency needs and effectively transitioning products to enterprise services.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with client/business teams, establishing regular communication and fostering trust to ensure successful collaboration and issue resolution.

Required Skills:

• 5 Years - Experience in Project management: planning/managing scope, budget, timeline, resources; coordinating project activities
• 2 Years - Experience in Product ownership, portfolio management
• 5 Years - Experience in Requirement elicitation, documentation and articulation between teams
• 5 Years - Proficient understanding of the software development lifecycle and related methodologies
• 5 Years - Experience partnering with vendor project teams, managing relationships and vendor management
• 5 Years - High quality documentation: project plans, status updates, presentations, requirements, user stories, process maps, instructions
• 5 Years - Demonstrated strong communication skills across technical teams and business stakeholders, specifically to leadership - setting/resetting expectations
• 3 Years - Guide stages of agile software development, including user story development, sprint planning, and prioritization of the product backlog.
• 3 Years - IT vendor management

This position is available on a corp-to-corp basis or as a W2 position with a competitive benefits package. DataStaff, Inc. offers medical, dental, and vision coverage options as well as paid vacation, sick, and holiday leave. As many of our opportunities are long-term, we also have a 401k program available for employees after 6 months