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Head of Product Management and Delivery

Permanent

Full Time (37 hours per week), Flexible working, Part time, Condensed hours, Job share all considered

Up to £86,335 per annum

Location: Remote with occasional travel to Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing Date: 17th September 2023

We are looking for an inspiring leader with extensive experience in Product Management to join Service Transformation at Essex County Council, drive innovation in the digital space and develop the Council’s emerging product management capability.

Essex County Council is shaping a new programme of transformation with renewed energy, ambition, and focus. In the last few years, we have been able to build the foundations of financial stability and create the breathing space to think big. And without doubt, ‘big’ is the challenge ahead of us.

As many of our residents’ lives have become more complex and uncertain, they need us to deliver greater, improved support. With increasing demand on our services and finances post-pandemic, it’s never been more critical to take a user-centred approach to change.

In the two years since its launch, we’ve made good progress towards our Everyone’s Essex goals. As we look ahead to 2030, our ambition continues with vital plans for building the resilient, efficient, and effective council that our residents deserve.

Service Transformation will play an important role in grounding this change in the needs of Essex residents, and ensuring our next steps are focused in the areas where we can deliver meaningful change for both residents and staff.

The Role

As an experienced and exemplary leader in Product Management you will establish consensus for the product vision, design strategy and require effective assurance across multiple products. You'll work in collaboration with designers, user researchers, and developers to consistently improve existing products and develop new ones, whilst ensuring they comply with industry standards.

Product Management is a new and growing capability in the Council, you will provide professional expertise and leadership, to improve understanding of the discipline and bring best practice to both Service Transformation and other teams around the Council.

You will foster collaborative partnerships both internally and externally and ensure ECC is recognised as a strategic authority, with technical expertise, in user-centred design.

You will have a track record of quickly establishing credibility, bring a high level of expertise, empathy, and collaboration to enable the Council to create a culture and working environment that supports creativity and embraces critical challenge to constantly improve.

Day to day you will:

• lead a programme of work to consolidate ECC’s existing web estate and deliver the vision of a new public services platform across Essex

• provide product leadership across multiple products, develop product vision and translate this into a roadmap of prioritised deliverables and establish consensus both internally and with key external stakeholders

• plan and lead discussions with senior and political leaders to advocate for inclusive and accessible services and influence the digital transformation of council services

• provide strategic direction to the team and work collaboratively with the Service Transformation leadership and senior colleagues across the council to align the team’s work to organisational aims and objectives

• establish effective stakeholder relationships, specifically with technology colleagues, to understand technical constraints and build testable prototypes and production ready products into live environments

• set high standards to ensure products meet user needs, consider future changes in technology and are sustainable to operate at scale (this specifically includes but not limited to the Government Service Standards, Government Accessibility Regulations, and Information Governance principles).

• establish external partnerships to create opportunities for collaboration and learning and represent ECC’s product management community both in and outside of the council

• line-manage, coach and mentor the Product Management and Delivery team, including hiring, assignments, development, pay and performance

Skills and Experience

We want to hear from experienced leaders with skills and demonstrated successes in:

• acting as a recognised expert for the profession and creating the environment for success at an organisational level

• developing relationships with stakeholders at all levels, and communicating clearly and simply to manage their expectations

• leading teams through the full product life cycle and identifying which tools and techniques should be used at each stage

• coaching and leading teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach to take and evaluating this through the life of a project

• developing sustainable support models, identifying, and dealing with potential risks across or between all stages of the product life cycle

• initiating and supporting working with other digital, data and technology roles and professions

• understanding the marketplace and persuading others that a product is the right one to use, including building business cases based on user need

• developing a long-term vision and objectives, focusing on what is important and most relevant to provide the best service for the end user

• anticipating problems, how they fit into the larger picture and how to defend against them at the right time

• making operations efficient and acting as the escalation point for major operational issues

• meeting the needs of users across a variety of channels, bringing insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure these are met by the business

Benefits of working for us

This is a great role in a vibrant and growing team. You’ll find an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued.

We’re also a sociable bunch. We regularly get together for team lunches and to celebrate our successes.

You can find out more about us and the work we do on Service Transformation blog.

The Council has developed a package of benefits that we hope resonates with you. You can find out more about our pay and reward offer on our Working for Essex website .

It’s important to us that we represent the communities that we serve, and we want a diverse workforce and an inclusive working environment. You can find out more about our commitment to equality and diversity on our Equality and Diversity page .

What next

If you would like a chat about the role, then we’d love to hear from you. Please email [email protected]

Please include a covering letter in your application. This should present demonstrable experience for all the bullet points listed under “Skills and Experience”. Please try to use real examples and tell us what the situation was, what you did and what the result was.

If your application is shortlisted, you’ll be invited to attend an interview between 3rd and 5th October 2023.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community.

If you have queries or require anything further, please email [email protected]

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn . Further details can be found on our careers page .

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