Solid reputation, passionate people and endless opportunities. That's Travelers. Our superior financial strength and consistent record of strong operating returns mean security for our customers - and opportunities for our employees. You will find Travelers to be full of energy and a workplace in which you truly can make a difference.



Enterprise Business Intelligence & Analytics (EBIA) is seeking a Product Owner (PO) to support Master Data Management (MDM). MDM is a strategic enabler supporting Travelers' by delivering thoughtful data solutions that enable key business capabilities, including entity resolution, data enrichment and 360-degree views of key business entities such as individual customers, client businesses, agencies, etc.  The incumbent will report to and partner closely with the Product Manager to develop an effective data product strategy. In this role you will assist in the decomposition of that strategy into a navigable roadmap of epics and features that deliver the intended business outcomes.

As a member of the Agile Team, a Product Owner is responsible for breaking down features (projects) into user stories for the team to plan, execute and deliver.  Acting as the voice of customer, the Product Owner has content and prioritization authority over the team's backlog of work.  The PO also has a significant role in quality control as they are responsible for defining acceptance criteria and are the only team member empowered to determine if that criteria has be satisfied.  The PO works in partnership with a Scrum Master and a Solution Architect to enable an assigned agile team to successfully plan, execute and deliver business value.

This role will report to the Product Manager and has significant relationships and responsibilities outside the local team, including the line of business and functional partners.
 

Preparation and Participation in PI Planning  

• Heavily involved in program backlog refinement and preparation for PI planning and also plays a significant role in the planning event itself. Before the planning event, the PO updates the team backlog and typically reviews and contributes to the program Vision, Roadmap, and content presentations.
• During the event, the PO is involved with story definition, providing the clarifications necessary to assist the team with their story estimates and sequencing. The PO also drafts the team's specific objectives for the upcoming PI.

Iteration Execution  

• Maintaining the team backlog - With input from System Architect/Engineering and other stakeholders, the PO has the primary responsibility for building, editing, and maintaining the team backlog. Consisting mostly of user stories, it also includes defects and enablers. Backlog items are prioritized based on user value, time, and other team dependencies determined in the PI planning meeting and refined during the PI.
• Iteration Planning - The PO reviews and reprioritizes the backlog as part of the prep work for Iteration Planning, including coordination of dependencies with other POs. During the iteration planning meeting, the PO is the primary source for story detail and priorities and has the responsibility of accepting the final iteration plan.
• Just-in-time story elaboration - Most backlog items are elaborated into user stories for implementation. This may happen before the iteration, during iteration planning, or during the iteration. While any team member can write stories and acceptance criteria, the PO has the primary responsibility for maintaining the flow. There should be approximately two iterations' worth of stories ready in the team backlog at all times. More would create a queue, while less might inhibit flow.
• Supporting Acceptance Test-Driven Development - POs participate in the development of story acceptance criteria, draft them when feasible, and provide examples.
• Accepting stories - The PO is the only team member who can accept stories as done. This includes validation that the story meets acceptance criteria and has the appropriate, persistent acceptance tests, and that it otherwise complies its Definition of Done.  In so doing, the PO also assures a level of quality, focusing primarily on fitness for use.
• Understand enabler work - While POs are not expected to drive technological decisions, rather understand the scope of the upcoming enabler work and to collaborate with System and Solution Architect/Engineering to assist with decision-making and sequencing of the critical technological infrastructures that will host the new business functionality.
• Participate in team demo and retrospective - As the person responsible for requirements, POs have an essential role in the team demo, reviewing and accepting stories. They also participate in the Iteration Retrospective, where the teams gather to improve their processes and are active in the Agile Release Train's Inspect and Adapt (I&A) workshop.

Program Execution  

• Iterations and Agile teams serve a larger purpose: the frequent, reliable, and continuous release of value-added solutions. During each PI, the PO coordinates dependencies with other POs. This often occurs in weekly PO sync meetings.
• The PO also has an instrumental role in producing the System Demo for program and business stakeholders.

Inspect and Adapt (I&A) 

• Teams address their larger impediments in the I&A workshop. There, the PO works across teams to define and implement improvement stories that will increase the velocity and quality of the program.
• The PI system demo is part of the I&A workshop. The PO has an instrumental role in producing the PI system demo for program stakeholders.
• To ensure that they will be able to show the most critical aspects of the solution to the stakeholders, POs also participate in the preparation of the PI system demo.

Metrics and Analytics 

• The PO is responsible for working with appropriate areas to ensure that metrics to measure the health, utilization and value of their assigned solutions are identified, coded for, tested and available post-implementation

On an ongoing basis, the PO has an instrumental role in producing metrics and analyses of their assigned solutions for program and value stream stakeholders.
 

• Bachelor's degree in Business, MIS, CIS, or other related fields. 
• 5+ years' experience developing and supporting business technology systems and 7+ years' experience in a leadership role on software delivery projects. 
• Experience in Agile Development methodology. 
• Experience in working on MDM transformation initiatives preferred but not required
• Proven track record of delivering business results and managing products from inception to adoption.

• Strong interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills; able to tailor communication style to the audience.

• Analytical Thinking: Identifies current or future problems or opportunities, analyzes, synthesize and compares information to understand issues, identifies cause/effect relationships and explores alternative solutions to support sound decision making.
• Teamwork: Maintains partnerships across the organization, and is able to influence senior management, peers and staff through an inclusive style and recognition of their abilities to achieve results. The success of the team is above own interest
• Accountability: Takes ownership and responsibility for actions and outcomes, performance and results. 
• Relationship Management: Seeks out, builds, fosters and maintains productive relationships, networks or alliances to meet goals and achieve results.
• Business Perspective: Uses knowledge of internal and external factors impacting the property casualty industry to make decisions.
• Technology: Uses, leverages and maintains proficiency with corporate and job specific technology as it evolves (e.g., hardware, software, business unit applications and systems tools).
• Conflict Management: Brings conflicts into the open and resolves them collaboratively.
• Change Management / Resilience: Remains energized and focused in the face of ambiguity, change or strenuous demands.
• Risk Taking: Identifies, assesses, manages and takes intelligent risks to attain objectives

 
 

4 years analytics experience required.

Travelers is an equal opportunity employer.