Product Owner, itslearning

Sanoma Learning is the leading European learning company, serving over 20 million students in 11 countries. We offer printed and digital learning materials as well as digital learning and teaching platforms for primary, secondary, and vocational education. The development of our methodologies is based on deep teacher and student insight and really understanding their needs. By combining our educational technologies and pedagogical expertise, we create learning products and services with the highest learning impact. In our Technology organization, you will join the largest cross-cultural community of Sanoma Learning and contribute to the digital transformation and future of education in Europe.

About the project

itslearning is an award winning, successful SaaS learning management system used in schools, colleges and universities across Europe. We are part of the Sanoma Learning family of companies. We are looking for a motivated and experienced Product Owner who can champion accessibility and “equity of access”, and who can define streamlined teaching and learning workflows. We also recognise AI is a new and emerging area for teaching and learning, you will be given time to research how best to leverage this technology following the Sanoma AI guidelines. Any experience in this area will be an advantage to the successful candidate.

You will be an expert on the needs of the educational sector and know how to translate these into product requirements that will solve key problems for our user base. You will be supported by user research experts, user design professionals and dedicated technical teams who turn your vision into reality. We are customer-centric and use agile for our development process.

itslearning offers flexible working (hybrid home and office). You will be joining an established team of 6 product owners each working in an open and collaborative evironment where each product owner has real influence on how best to help our customers. There is an expectation for travel around Europe as we want product owners to meet and understand our users.

Responsibilities

• Work with the global product manager, product team, user experience team and most importantly our customers/users to help define the product vision, roadmap, and prioritized development requirements.
• Define, manage, and prioritize product requirements.
• Conduct user interviews to understand what our users want from the LMS, but also instruct the user research team to get the information you need.
• Provide educational expertise and insight so our user experience team can create high-level prototypes.
• Create great user stories for teams to develop with clear goals and success criteria to deliver real benefits to our users.
• Present user stories to your teams for development using the agile methodology.
• Provide leadership and guidance to your development teams.
• Ensure that funding set aside for development is used effectively and that investments are in line with current budgets.   
• Contribute to the ongoing strategy for supporting LMS across our markets.
• Participate in and host international meetings, workshops and conferences with customers, users, and industry experts internationally to drive product development.
• Work with sales, marketing, support, and services to drive feature and user adoption, and ensure that customer satisfaction goals are met.
• Work with our strategic and commercial teams to develop go-to-market strategies and a to further develop our strategy.
• Be a champion for itslearning and ensure that we meet our overall strategy and goals.

Requirements

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's or master’s degree in education, computer science, new media or related fields.
• Alternatively, or in additional- experience as a teacher or educational professional.
• 5+ years of experience one of the following:
  • Educational software development and/or educational product management
  • As a technically focused educationalist.

Other Skills & Abilities

• Experience of creating user stories for teams to develop, understanding of the AGILE development methodology.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. We are a global company and English is our language of business.
• Very good understanding of the educational sector, passionate about education, teaching, and learning.
• The ability to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority.
• Able to meet rigorous deadlines. 
• Strong knowledge of learning management systems preferred.
• The ability to in grasp market and customer problems and opportunities and translate these to clearly articulated product requirements.
• Demonstrated success working with product strategies.
• Clear, analytical, and creative thinking.
• The ability to communicate company strategies and visions, both within the organisation and to customers, users, and the industry in general.

We're working in a hybrid way so it's good if you're based in/near Bergen and can visit the office ~3 days a week. 

What we offer

As an employer, Sanoma offers a working environment where you are able and encouraged to show your best self. The working environment is result-oriented as well as flexible with a focus on collaboration. We offer you a key position with interesting and challenging tasks and excellent opportunities for professional growth. You will be part of a highly professional and experienced international team in an open and informal setting, where initiative is expected and rewarded.