PM Disability Migrations Client Solutions

Summary: This role is for a Product Manager (PM) for Disability Migrations within the U.S. Group Benefits, Disability Solution Train. The product manager will focus on Client Specific Solutions and be part of the migrations initiative leadership. This role will be responsible for:

• Planning and managing the delivery of client specific solutions for customers migrating from legacy systems to the Catalyst platform and delivering end-to-end solutions.
• Planning and delivering customer migrations
• Defining requirements and prioritizing features that will enable client specific enhancements and customer success.
• Understanding the marketplace, customers, and users to define scalable solutions.
• Collaborating with the Migrations leadership team
• Coordinating support across business, IT, operations, legacy product teams and the Catalyst product teams for the implementation and execution of the ARTs vision and strategy.
• Managing Product Owners
• Providing regular status updates

The Product Manager (PM) is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Agile Release Train. As the Product Manager, you will work with the business owner to help set vision, drive strategy by understanding the customer needs, the product, and the overall market. Individuals in this role are responsible for defining Capabilities and Features, creating medium and longer-term roadmaps that prioritize achieving customer and business value with technology solutions. You coach the Product Owners to effectively prioritize Team Backlogs to streamline program priorities and execution. You create shared understanding and clarity to reduce operational friction and provide the team with a clear view of their environment.

This is a leadership role with accountability to build and manage relationships with the claims organization, sales, service, market leadership, and technology partners to identify areas of opportunity to drive operational efficiencies through client specific capabilities while sustaining continued improvement for customer and claimant experience. PMs work closely with Release Train Engineers (RTE), Customers, Business Owners, team members, and other stakeholders to create viable and sustainable roadmaps and execution plans, based on Minimum Viable Product (MVP) definitions. You are ultimately responsible for the delivery across all teams within the ART, ensuring completeness and timely execution. Additionally, you are responsible for working with the Product Managers across each of the ARTs within the Disability Solution Train to ensure the completeness of the solutions and capabilities delivered.

PMs are accountable for delivery outcomes and decisions that solve product-related problems. Gaining direct feedback from Business Owners, you lead the process to identify key pain points in the customer journey, partnering on practical solutions that can demonstrate customer and business value throughout the development and release process. Working with Product Owners, you will decompose epics into features, prioritizing delivery based on set objectives and key results. PMs are effective at holding the ART accountable to deliver outcomes by working with others to actively explore solution options, ensuring decisions are taken by those with accountability for delivering outcomes, and dedicating their effort to delivering value that meets the needs of MetLife’s customers and our business goals.

A Product Manager is:

• The voice of the customer and business needs at the disability product level.
• A leader that prioritizes, defines, and shapes the roadmap for the agile release train.
• Assigns business value proposed and achieved during product increments.
• A person able to understand business needs and identify applicable technology solutions.
• A person who ensures we are delivering business value through tracking of metrics and outcomes.
• Accountable for execution and delivery across all teams.

A Product Manager’s focus on value is evident when we see them:

• Constantly reviewing and understanding the claimant and group customer feedback, turning pain points into opportunities.
• Working closely with Claims to continue to look for opportunities to simplify the claim experience for our Associates while improving operational efficiencies to reduce manual work that are error-prone.
• Working closely with customer facing teams on opportunities to meet and exceed customer needs.
• Ensuring teams are optimizing and prioritizing work to achieve ART and portfolio OKRs.
• Regularly re-examining our priorities to optimize the ART’s alignment with stakeholder and business demands.
• Ensuring that features are delivered completely and on-time, according to the plans set forth.

A Product Manager’s fixation on clarity is evident when they:

• Seek first to understand - our customers, stakeholders, and team members - and then to be understood.
• Make each team’s work visible through demos, metrics, and transparent processes.
• Provide clarity on the business objectives and key results the ART and teams will be measured by.

A Product Manager continuously employs agile practices that will sustain flow when they:

• Maintain a backlog of well-refined epics and features for the team.
• Continuously identify dependencies across the ART and proactively seek ways to resolve them.
• Respect the team’s need for focus by leveraging regularly scheduled, time-boxed meetings and minimizing ad-hoc demands.

A Product Manager champions Lean and reduces waste when they:

• Empower the teams to design and deliver valuable solutions instead of inserting approval states.
• Educate themselves, the teams, and others on how to recognize waste, streamlining processes and interactions to be as efficient and effective as possible.
• Make continuous improvement a foundation of all our processes.
• Recognize that time is our most precious resource, and they protect it vigorously.

A Product Manager leads by example when they:

• Act as a Mentor and Coach for their teams, building trust and providing guidance.
• Act as a Negotiator to help analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility and evaluate which trade-offs to make.
• Identify areas of opportunity for cultural change and lead by example, showcasing respect for others and empathy for our customers.
• Use real-time feedback to coach Product Owners and team members on key behaviors and ways to display the work done.
• Celebrate wins across the teams and foster ways to let the team members demo their work proudly to leadership audiences.

Key Responsibilities:

The Work:

1. Partner with Business Owners to identify pain points throughout the claim journey for our claim associates, claimant, and group customer journey, creating epics and features as a result.
2. Ensure each Program Increment focuses on features with maximum value, aligned with disability product strategy, roadmap, and key milestones.
3. Help refine, prioritize, and accept the work delivered across the disability solution train to ensure the outcomes meet the defined customer and business needs.
4. Ensure all features are delivered whole and released to customers as a product to be proud of.
5. Develop program-level Objectives and Key Results that align business goals with prioritized epics and features, tracking progress throughout.
6. Make decisions to solve product-related problems, trade-off discussions, to stay on track to committed outcomes (Acceptance, prioritizing, making trade-offs, etc.).

The Interactions:

1. Lead Product Owners and teams to create viable and sustainable plans that align to business expectations.
2. Set and manage stakeholders’ expectations through regular discussions about future needs and iterative demonstrations of completed work.
3. Identify methods for gathering and incorporating feedback from multiple sources to better define solutions.
4. Active interaction with Business Owners and other partners to protect the integrity of the deliverables.
5. Work with Product Owners to ensure alignment of team’s vision.
6. Work with RTE to coordinate and facilitate key meetings. Work with system architect to understand what is possible and maintain the architectural runway.

Key Behaviors:

• Driven and motivated by our customers and the business to focus on the right outcomes - Deliver Results.
• Able to identify, access, and connect among key stakeholders and experts - Seek Diverse Perspectives.
• Able to make decisions on information that is available at that time. Be comfortable with progressive elaboration and discovery (Progress over perfection) - Manages Ambiguity.
• Take ownership, influence at all levels, access all stakeholders equally (don’t ask for permission) - Seize Opportunity.
• Able to take all forms of input and synthesize (not influenced by "hierarchy") - Seek Diverse Perspectives.
• Willing to observe, analyze, and make recommendations - Seek Diverse Perspectives.
• Communicate factually. Navigate conversations to align on a set of data inputs that drive identification and prioritization of work and provide the clarity needed to accomplish it - Deliver what matters.
• Maintain stability throughout the iterations and add appropriate feedback as needed - Enable Solutions.

While PMs may have Product Owners as direct reports, Product Managers are leaders, not managers. PMs see themselves as a member of the team and are able to adapt their leadership approach to enable and empower the team to solve problems and deliver outcomes - Empowerment & Collaboration.

Required Qualifications:

• At least 15 years of career experience in technology delivery, insurance claims management, or customer relationship management.
• At least 10 years’ experience in the financial services industry.
• At least 10 years’ experience managing projects or products.
• At least 10 years’ experience as a people manager or leader.
• At least 2 years’ experience working in an agile delivery method.
• At least 2 years’ experience using agile and or product management industry standard tools.
• Excellent communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• SAFe Product Management certification
• At least 10 years of experience leading teams for an employee benefits provider
• At least 10 years of experience managing insurance claims
• At least 5 years of experience managing customer relationships
• At least 5 years of experience as a product owner
• At least 5 years of experience in execute communications.
• At least 2 years of experience with Target Process and Azdo creating epics, features and capabilities.
• Previous experience leading testing teams
• Previous experience leading conversion or migration projects.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.