Change your career, change lives
The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).
The Open University is a unique institution created 50 years ago to open up education for all. We are open to anyone, anywhere, changing millions of lives across the world and always looking for new ways to help people succeed. Our pioneering use of innovative methods, such as our BBC partnership, means we reach more people than any other university.
We work across all four nations of the UK and we are the most popular choice for online, distance, flexible study.
About the Role
This role sits within the Marketing, Communications and Development unit. The focus of this role will be to support the unit in ensuring all registration systems are ready to open each academic year, contributing to the vision for the future of these systems within a wider enrolment service and optimising the student and staff experience to meet strategic outcomes.
Our product teams work on the full lifecycle of products: from ideation and development to evolution and management – and we are committed to be data-driven in our prioritisation and when measuring the success our products.
As a Product Manager, you will be responsible for and manage products within a service or larger complex product. You will work closely with a Senior Manager who will guide the direction and priorities for the products you work on.
This role will be responsible for ensuring a number of critical enhancements and new products for students and colleagues are delivered to support the University’s fee strategy each year, and contribute to the vision for the future enrolment service as well as optimising for performance and strategic outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
You will:
- work within a multidisciplinary team, leading and collaborating, using a range of agile methodologies.
- develop an understanding of the users’ needs and champion these in the delivery of your product and to iteratively improve it
- engage in meaningful interactions with users demonstrating you put users first and can manage priorities as well as support the change management activity
- you’ll contribute to, communicate and iterate a product vision, in line with the Service or wider product vision, that is compelling to your users, team and stakeholders
- develop a product backlog, identifying priorities based on evidence as well as writing good user stories.
- engage with users and stakeholders through a range of channels to encourage take-up, providing updates at an appropriate level of detail.
- you’ll have a clear focus on value and impact for the business and user, balancing delivery, and quality at all times
- set measurable goals for your product and report against these using data to demonstrate progress against benefits and ensuring products are aligned to the service, product portfolio and strategy.
- foster a culture of openness and collaboration, building working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders across SSP, the wider Open University and externally
About You
Essential:
- Good understanding and experience in product development and management, preferably with customer focused digital products.
- Experience of engaging with users and using qualitative and quantitative data to identify how their needs can be met by products and services
- Good understanding and experience of recruitment in the Open University (Desirable), or a higher education or marketing environment.
- Excellent stakeholder management, influencing and negotiation skills.
- You can demonstrate knowledge and some experience of Agile methodology
- You can demonstrate an understanding of user-centred design and have a passion for creating great user experiences
- Ability to build and develop productive working relationships with internal business partners and externally.
- Good communication and presentation skills; ability to communicate with confidence and credibility in face-to-face situations, remotely and in writing.
- The ability to cope with pressure and ambiguity offering timely pragmatic solutions.
- Ability to work as part of the team as well as on own initiative – to be self-motivated and proactive to achieve goals
- Good analytical skills to solve complex problems and make timely decisions based on the vision and outcomes of the product or Service
- Ability to analyse and assess value of an initiative and prioritise it within a backlog of ideas in line with broader objectives and priorities.
- Experience of taking evidence led approach to decision making
- Flexible approach, willing to embrace new ideas and adapt to changing situations and requirements.
Support with your application
If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.
What's in it for you?
At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
Work location
It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where you can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office some attendance in the office will be required in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be at least once every 2 weeks.
Next steps in the Recruitment process
If shortlisted, we anticipate interviews taking place either W/C 3rd November or W/C 10th November.
Early closing date notification
We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.
How to apply
To apply for this role please submit the following document(s):
- CV
- Supporting statement outlining how your skills and experience meets the essential criteria listed above.
You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.
