HR Product Owner – Director

Who We Are

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation-inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.

To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures—and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.

What You’ll Do

The People Digital Product Portfolio is the largest & most dynamic product portfolio within BCG’s Digital Products Organization. We enable the global technology for BCG’s entire People Function including Recruiting; Talent Management (Staffing, Mobility, & Career Development); L&D; and Core HR (including Absence, Performance, Contingent Workforce, Compensation, Benefits). Over the past two years, the People Digital Product Portfolio has more than doubled in size, and there is more growth to come. 

With this growth comes amazing new leadership opportunities, including the Product Owner for a squad focused on delivering against our robust People agenda. The Product Owner is a leader who is passionate about serving customers & inspiring their teams; and excited to be an ambassador for the organization’s Agile ways of working. This role will focus on delivering the digital agenda for important Core HR priorities, including Talent & Performance processes within Workday as well as our Contingent Workforce management processes in SAP Fieldglass. 

You will be responsible for developing and presenting new business cases for continued investments into our HR technology systems. You will represent the voice of the customer, whether internal or external, and make sure that squad priorities are aligned to business needs. You will do this through a deep functional understanding of HR process design coupled with a strong technical background. Successful product owners will manage conversations with functional stakeholders from HR/BCG leadership and turn those discussions into action with the support of their squad members. You will coordinate closely with your Product Team Lead to stay aligned on business goals and make sure your squad is progressing and delivering against them. To get this work done, you will own and prioritize the backlog of enhancements that your squad members will use to drive their work. 

Among your responsibilities, you will: 

Deliver business results and customer value 

• Ensure that the product is built in an incremental way, releasing new working features at the end of each squad and creating value for the customer
• Track product performance to inform future work
• Prioritize work that is most impactful for end users
• Deliver on specific and measurable Key Results to be defined for your Squad
• Manage relevant product budget process and support the Product Portfolio Lead in engaging with the funding process 

Serve as the voice of customer or end-user 

• Translate the voice and needs of customer into user stories, engaging users as needed
• Effectively manage stakeholders’ and users’ expectations while building credibility through a strong business sense and balancing of priorities
• Engage in continuous discovery (e.g., via surveys & interviews) to understand customer needs
• Leverage empirical and qualitative data to assess feature performance and inform prioritization
• Determine tradeoffs involving customer value, cost, and speed to execution
• Represent customer needs to ensure they are understood and integrated into the Squad’s work 

Oversee what is delivered by the Squad and when 

• Apply design-thinking to technical issues to understand how users engage with the system and consider multiple alternatives to find the best solution
• Own end-to-end delivery of enhancements by understanding second and third order implications of decisions and cross-functional impact
• Prioritize work through a well-organized backlog of user stories and clearly communicate what needs to be done and by when 
• Define and clearly communicate acceptance criteria for output based on business & customer needs 

Support and enable the Squad to get its work done 

• Challenge guidance/answers when necessary to arrive at the best possible understanding of issues and proposed solutions
• Regularly engage with the Squad to offer feedback on work-in-progress and clarify requirements
• Engage with Chapter Leads regarding resourcing and functional expertise required in Squad
• Provide feedback as part of performance management of Squad members and other members of the Product Portfolio 

Set an overall vision to direct and inform the Squad’s work 

• Work closely with the Product Team Lead to understand and drive alignment on the Product Portfolio’s business strategy, goals, and objectives
• Translate Product Portfolio objectives into a clear vision (e.g., via Key Results, sprint goals) for your Squad to inform the creation and prioritization of the Squad’s backlog of work
• Share information about the Squad’s output and priorities with other Product Owners to ensure alignment across the organization 

YOU’RE GOOD AT 

• Critical thinking and balancing information from multiple sources (technical and functional) to guide the squad to the correct outcome
• Applying a consultative approach to interactions with the squad and stakeholders to build strong relationships and trust 
• Being customer-focused and dedicated to understanding and learning about customer needs and requirements
• Operating with a transparency mindset, communicating clearly and openly 
• Working with ambiguous requirements and multi-disciplinary teams 
• Influencing stakeholders up to the senior levels of the organization
• Bringing a data-driven approach to decision making, both in day-to-day management and in making strategic trade-offs
• Looking for opportunities to innovate and get things done better and faster 

What You’ll Bring

• Total 7+ years’ relevant experience as Product Owner, leading design/support of HR Technology systems, or leading HR transformations as part of a Workday or SAP Fieldglass consulting team
• Strong functional understanding of Talent, Performance, and/or contingent workforce processes, especially related to consulting or professional services organizations
• Good understanding of technology enabled business transformation, Digital transformation, Organizational transformation, delivering enterprise-level IT and Digital projects
• Experience collaborating with senior HR leadership and influencing decision making / project planning at a program level
• Deep understanding of talent & performance Workday configuration is a plus
• Deep understanding of contingent workforce SAP Fieldglass configuration is a plus
• Experience working as part of agile teams and comfort with agile ways of working
• Divergent thinker who can turn ideas into tangible products
• Exceptional communications and stakeholder management skills
• Experience in consulting is a plus 

Who You’ll Work With

• Every member of your squad, for which you will be the product owner
• Internal customers, translating their voice and needs into user stories and engaging users as needed
• Product Team and Portfolio Leaders, who will set the vision, roadmap, budget, and priorities for the Product Portfolio and subsequently, for the squads
• Technical Area Leaders, who will drive alignment between strategic architecture and product vision
• Scrum Leads, which will act as your right hand to remove impediments and will assist you in dealing with the different artifacts and ceremonies
• Other Product Owners within BCG, to share best practices and ensure alignment between squads and a culture
• Agile Coaches, with whom you will develop BCG’s Agile ways of working and your own experience 

Boston Consulting Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity / expression, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under national, provincial, or local law, where applicable, and those with criminal histories will be considered in a manner consistent with applicable state and local laws.

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