The Marketing, Digital & Brand Scotland directorate at VisitScotland is made up of a variety of skilled resources, specialising in digital development, marketing, content, brand, print and campaign delivery.
The Digital Delivery department, which sits in this directorate is made up of specialist technical teams covering the complete software development lifecycle supported by project and programme management and web operations teams.
The department facilitates the delivery of a portfolio of strategic digital programmes for all areas of VisitScotland, including the flagship websites visitscotland.com and visitscotland.org, along with marketing, data, events, and business process improvement projects.
The department’s objectives will be achieved through working in partnership with colleagues in all VisitScotland directorates and are central to the ongoing Digital Transformation within the organisation, ensuring systems and services and moving from Good, to Great, to World Class. With a responsibility for marketing Scotland as a top tourist destination, the systems must not only operate effectively, but must be highly engaging and visual, whilst also being accessible to all.
Background of the role
The primary goal of a VisitScotland Graduate Product Owner is to represent the customer to the development team for one of the organisation’s flagship websites, initially focussing on the main consumer website www.visitscotland.com.
This will require you to develop skills in translating the needs of users and the organisation through face-to-face interviews, workshops, and forms of digital feedback such as user research and surveys. You will then assist in translating these into user stories and requirements that can be built by the product team.
You will also learn how to accommodate competing feature priorities from different areas of the organisation and build these into product roadmaps.
You will further develop skills in working with data (to measure indicators that show the product is improving), working within multi-disciplined teams (design, UX, content writers, software developers, QA engineers, etc), and contributing to product roadmaps.
This role has been designed for graduates who are interested in becoming Product Owners, but who do not yet have experience or skills in the area. A tailored development programme will be created for you, along with mentoring, coaching, training, and other support to help you develop your career as a Product Owner. You could come from any academic background and degree programme, but be interested in understanding people and behaviours, and translating these into well-designed products that delight users.
What is the job?
- Work with a wide variety of colleagues across the organisation to contribute to the development of the product strategy and vision
- Work with external and internal users and stakeholders to understand their needs and how we can deliver real value by developing new features and prioritising the product backlog
- Dive into the detail of new features to flesh out user stories, document requirements and help the Development team to understand how user needs can be met
- Measure site performance, and hypothesise how developments will influence and improve these metrics
- Gain an understanding of how risk, impact and value allow informed decisions on feature priority
- Work closely and effectively with the Scrum Master, Product Owner and Development team, including Software and Front-end Developers, Test/Quality Assurance, Business Analysts, Designers, SEO and User Experience
- Learn how to lead user story mapping and backlog refinement sessions
- Be a product ambassador for the organisation, championing the product both internally and externally. Explain the work of the Development team in simple terms that everyone can understand.
What you must have
- A degree in any discipline
- A desire to work to develop online digital products that delight users, by understanding their needs and advocating on their behalf within the organisation
- Good skills in writing, presenting basic data, speaking with stakeholders, and team working
- Empathy with all users, ensuring product developments are engaging and attractive, but also functional, accessible, and compliant with relevant requirements
- A passion for promoting Scotland as a leading world destination for tourists, advocating for more responsible and sustainable travel
What we'd like you to have
- Experience in working with qualitative and quantitative data
- Microsoft Office knowledge (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)