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O365 Product Owner Job Description?
I have the opportunity of a lifetime -- to write my own job description as our company's Global O365 Product Owner for 20,000 employees! Do you have a sample you could provide? Thanks.
Sue BROWN How exciting to get to write your own JD. What I'm adding here is a bit different than the other one. For me, if you only focus on the technical elements of the job you are missing your chance to set yourself up for other leadership roles in different parts of business in the long term. You also won't be effective at gaining influence in the organization over time. So what I have here is a modern O365 Product Owner job posting. It goes by many names but I most often see the VP of Collaboration Services.
You'll note that I intentionally do not require a BS in CS for this role. With the right experience its is unnecessary and I wrote the rest of the responsibilities and skills sections to account for that. Some of the most amazing people I've seen in this role around the world have had communications, business and other unrelated science degrees. A degree is "extra credit" but will not make the person successful. Especially not a CS degree as this role is often more about people than the tech itself. Love to hear what others have to say. This role is evolving so what I've written now is not what I'd have written a year ago but that is what makes this fun! Enjoy and here you go:
VP, Collaboration Solutions
Contoso Electronics
Are you dedicated to delivering a superior employee experience? Do you have experience in driving the adoption of collaboration solutions in a large scale, fast moving environment with technical precision? If so, read on...
Contoso is looking for a seasoned professional who can oversee the deployment and adoption of Office 365 in our environment. This role combines technical and business skills with leadership talent to deliver collaboration, communication and process improvements for our employees, customers and partners. You must possess a curious mind and a passion for developing talent as you develop your team of analysts and technical service managers in our organization. An ability to prioritize outcomes and build consensus is essential to properly serve our 50k employees around the world. A great sense of humor wouldn't hurt. Further responsibilities are:
- Responsible for design and delivery of overall collaboration solution strategy
- Oversee technical staff to ensure healthy management of Office 365 services including deployment, migration, management, support and ongoing release cadences
- Oversight of design and ongoing management of campaigns and communication materials used for driving adoption of selected Office 365 services
- Oversee selection and management of vendor staff for technical, solution design/delivery and support functions including budget management
- Ability to work under pressure while maintaining positive morale and providing clarity about competing priorities
- Utilize superior analytical abilities to successfully resolve conflicts, prioritize deliverables and build consensus across organizational boundaries
Skills and Requirements:
- 10 years of product portfolio or IT program management experience with a proven track record of on time/on budget delivery including definition of success & delivery measures
- 10 years of experience developing strategies, campaigns and success measures for delivering organizational change
- 5+ years Office 365 management experience including some combination of service management of SharePoint, Exchange, Skype for Business/Microsoft Teams and/or other collaboration solution delivery management including workflow tools such as Microsoft PowerAutomate & PowerPlatform tools and their predecessors.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills including executive presentations
- Technical proficiency in service solution design including custom solutions in Office 365 utilizing Azure services as needed.
- 5+ years of Agile service management experience in running feature teams with Kanban, SCRUM or other Agile methodology. Experience in best practices for iterative service release and communications.
- 5+ years of experience in division or department level budget management
- Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist certification and additional Microsoft technical certifications in SharePoint, Exchange and/or Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams preferred, but not required.
- Prosci and/or other organizational change management certification desired but not required
- BA in Communications, Organizational Change Management or BS in Computer Science preferred, but not required.
- Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT
Community Manager
Sue BROWN How exciting to get to write your own JD. What I'm adding here is a bit different than the other one. For me, if you only focus on the technical elements of the job you are missing your chance to set yourself up for other leadership roles in different parts of business in the long term. You also won't be effective at gaining influence in the organization over time. So what I have here is a modern O365 Product Owner job posting. It goes by many names but I most often see the VP of Collaboration Services.
You'll note that I intentionally do not require a BS in CS for this role. With the right experience its is unnecessary and I wrote the rest of the responsibilities and skills sections to account for that. Some of the most amazing people I've seen in this role around the world have had communications, business and other unrelated science degrees. A degree is "extra credit" but will not make the person successful. Especially not a CS degree as this role is often more about people than the tech itself. Love to hear what others have to say. This role is evolving so what I've written now is not what I'd have written a year ago but that is what makes this fun! Enjoy and here you go:
VP, Collaboration Solutions
Contoso Electronics
Are you dedicated to delivering a superior employee experience? Do you have experience in driving the adoption of collaboration solutions in a large scale, fast moving environment with technical precision? If so, read on...
Contoso is looking for a seasoned professional who can oversee the deployment and adoption of Office 365 in our environment. This role combines technical and business skills with leadership talent to deliver collaboration, communication and process improvements for our employees, customers and partners. You must possess a curious mind and a passion for developing talent as you develop your team of analysts and technical service managers in our organization. An ability to prioritize outcomes and build consensus is essential to properly serve our 50k employees around the world. A great sense of humor wouldn't hurt. Further responsibilities are:
- Responsible for design and delivery of overall collaboration solution strategy
- Oversee technical staff to ensure healthy management of Office 365 services including deployment, migration, management, support and ongoing release cadences
- Oversight of design and ongoing management of campaigns and communication materials used for driving adoption of selected Office 365 services
- Oversee selection and management of vendor staff for technical, solution design/delivery and support functions including budget management
- Ability to work under pressure while maintaining positive morale and providing clarity about competing priorities
- Utilize superior analytical abilities to successfully resolve conflicts, prioritize deliverables and build consensus across organizational boundaries
Skills and Requirements:
- 10 years of product portfolio or IT program management experience with a proven track record of on time/on budget delivery including definition of success & delivery measures
- 10 years of experience developing strategies, campaigns and success measures for delivering organizational change
- 5+ years Office 365 management experience including some combination of service management of SharePoint, Exchange, Skype for Business/Microsoft Teams and/or other collaboration solution delivery management including workflow tools such as Microsoft PowerAutomate & PowerPlatform tools and their predecessors.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills including executive presentations
- Technical proficiency in service solution design including custom solutions in Office 365 utilizing Azure services as needed.
- 5+ years of Agile service management experience in running feature teams with Kanban, SCRUM or other Agile methodology. Experience in best practices for iterative service release and communications.
- 5+ years of experience in division or department level budget management
- Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist certification and additional Microsoft technical certifications in SharePoint, Exchange and/or Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams preferred, but not required.
- Prosci and/or other organizational change management certification desired but not required
- BA in Communications, Organizational Change Management or BS in Computer Science preferred, but not required.
Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT - Wish you wrote job descriptions for our org. Much less dry!😀
Question: other than the adoption specialist, what other exams / certifications / MS Learn learning paths & modules would you recommend for this position? Azure Fundamentals? Power Platform Fundamental? Others?
- Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT
RobSchmidt Great question... We're about to publish a learning path that starts with Office applications all the way through specialty areas. So I'll write more on this later as we do some updates on these courses and how they connect together for the role but at the moment they are:
Microsoft Office certifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/office-certification.aspx
Microsoft 365 Fundamentals https://docs.microsoft.com/learn/paths/m365-fundamentals/
Managing Team Collaboration https://docs.microsoft.com/learn/paths/m365-manage-team-collaboration/
And then you could pick advanced specialities like Azure, Dynamics, Analytics, Voice, PowerPlatform or AI to continue depending on your industry, interests or role. It's important to not overwhelm people though and remember that building people skills (presenting, writing, campaign design, leadership) is equally important.
Glad you like the JD. it's important to attract people who have a mature sense of humor and personality to these roles so there is a method to my madness 🙂
Sue BROWN this was the posting for an O365 Delivery Manager role I applied for.....may be some things in here you could use.
Role Overview: The Delivery Manager of O365 Implementation and support team will guide a team that is charged with the development, configuration, implementation and maintenance of Office 365 deployments. He/She will oversee this team of engineers and support staff through multiple implementations/migrations & support. The Delivery Manager of this team will collaborate with both the internal technology teams and several of our business partners. This position will guide these resources through multiple complex O365 support initiatives and projects.
The Delivery Manager provides oversight and coordination of efforts with colleagues across multiple engineering teams, operations groups, internal partners and vendors.
Primary Responsibilities • Collaborate with IT management, IT engineering and the vendor operations teams • Oversees activities in all phases of the implementation and support process • Ensures the teams are properly developing requirements, technical specifications and documentation • Adheres and follows all change/release management processes and guidelines • Tracks progress and notifies management of issues that require escalation, and assumes responsibility for resolving or coordinating the resolution of risks or challenges impacting delivery timelines • Ensure operational and support standards, policies and procedures and ensures compliance • Oversees the issue resolution process and transition to the support team • The primary liaisons with vendor • Performs all other related duties as assigned
Education, Experience and Skills • 5+ years of leading complex projects with aggressive timeline • 5+ years of experience in developing requirements and performing system analysis • 1+ years of experience managing a cross-functional team in a highly complex environment • Proven track record delivering on projects on time/on budget • Experience with vendor, change and release management best practices • Ability to transform complex technical topics into understandable concepts for business users and ability to communicate business requirements to a technical audience • Experience performing application delivery leveraging Microsoft Azure • Experience with migrating MS Exchange to O365 • Experience with supporting/implementing mobile Email solutions. • Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications to include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, & Outlook • Bachelor’s degree Computer Science or related field required (8+ additional years of experience beyond the required years of experience may be substituted in lieu of a bachelor’s degree) Preferred Qualifications • 8+ years of building, managing and supporting IT applications in a mid to large size business environment • 5+ years of experience managing a cross-functional team in a highly complex environment • 5+ years coordinating large projects • 5+ years of experience of major systems implementation • Strong working knowledge of O365, MS Office Suite, Service Now, MS Exchange, Microsoft Azure, mobile email tools • Excellent analytical and problem solving abilities • Ability to effectively prioritize & multi-task in high volume workload situations • Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to interface effectively with all levels of staff, including internal/external customers and senior management teams
