Product owner (NPPV3 + SC)

Senior business-focused Product Ownership lead who can help establish and embed a Product Ownership capability across the Command & Control Transformation Programme and provide strategic leadership on the future product model. The emphasis is on strategic business design, product leadership, user-centric service design and establishing a sustainable product organisation, rather than running or managing IT services. This role needs to shape what the service needs to become and how the organisation governs and evolves it, rather than focusing on ITSM processes and operational service support.

Product Leadership & Governance

• Own and manage the Product Vision and Product Goals for all C&C platforms/services.
• Ensure product vision, goals and roadmap decisions are informed by clear user needs, user-centred design principles, operational feedback, frontline insight and evidence from live service performance.
• Create, order, and refine the Product Backlog, ensuring transparency,driving value based prioritisation, operational alignment, and safe deployment considerations.
• Lead benefits-led investment prioritisation, ensuring backlog, roadmap and funding decisions are clearly linked to operational value, business case benefits, risk reduction, service performance and affordability.
• Own product lifecycle management for C&C platforms and services, including the definition and monitoring of product KPIs, service performance measures, user adoption indicators and continuous improvement priorities
• Lead multi-team coordination within enterprise-scale Agile (SAFe) delivery structures.
• Chair the Programme Design Authority (PDA), governing design integrity, change requests, defects, workarounds, and traceability to operational risk.
• Oversee service transition, acceptance criteria, and deployment readiness, ensuring safe adoption into live operational environments.

Operational Engagement & Team Leadership

• Representing the MPS driving accountability in supplier forums, technical decision boards, operational governance groups, and readiness assessments. Working in lockstep with the superintendent acting as the voice of operations ensuring tight engagement into OCUs/BCUs ensuring the programme delivers on the overall business case benefits and supporting product roadmap.
• Hold suppliers to account for agreed product, service and contract outcomes, including delivery commitments, service performance, defect resolution, transition readiness, remedial action plans and continuous improvement obligations.
• Ensure appropriate triage and prioritisation of enhancements, operational change requests, defects, and service risks based on genuine business and operational impact.
• This role will work in lock step with the business design team, business change/ transition team and the substantive Superintendent and officer team supporting the transition of change into operations.

NB: This role would typically have Product Managers reporting into this position where they would have responsibility for each operational domain e.g. First Contact, Dispatch, Event Management, Data & Analytics etc and be supported by business analysts and SMEs (advisory) whom would be leading on business service and platform designs. This will be established as the programme moves into drop 2 and key roles and responsibilities are defined.

Defect Management, Testing, Service Readiness & Live Operations

• Lead the operational assessment and prioritisation of defects, ensuring severity is understood through a policing lens and tied to business impact, frontline safety, and service continuity.
• Design and implement a structured Defect Impact Assessment Framework to support go-live, early life support, and live operations.
• Own the operational testing strategy and acceptance approach for C&C products and services, ensuring appropriate coverage across user acceptance testing, operational acceptance testing, end-to-end process testing, service readiness testing, regression testing and early life support validation, working with DD&T, suppliers, operational SMEs and business change teams as required.
• Ensure the team and managed suppliers adhere to relevant Met and D&I Service Management frameworks, processes and tooling, including agreed controls for incident, problem, change, release, configuration, knowledge and service transition management.
• Ensure defects, configuration changes, and platform behaviours are understood by operational teams and communicated effectively across the programme.
• Use service performance data, incidents, defects, user feedback and operational risk assessments to drive continuous improvement and ensure live services remain safe, resilient, supportable and fit for operational policing

Intelligent Client Function (ICF)

• Design, stand-up and lead the Intelligent Client Function, ensuring the MPS maintains a clear, authoritative view of requirements, configuration management, operational workflows, and decision-making.
• Oversee configuration governance, ensuring consistency, auditability, and alignment to operational doctrine.
• Ensure the Intelligent Client Function provides effective challenge to supplier proposals, service performance, change impacts, defects and product decisions, maintaining a clear MPS view of operational requirements, service risk and acceptance criteria

NB: The design of the ICF and operational end state sits within remit of role, however the operational management of the ICF is yet to be designed in terms of the organizational design (Drop 2 design work)

Stakeholder, Risk & Security Governance

• Engage closely with stakeholders across DD&T, PMO, assurance functions, operations, and external suppliers.
• Provide clear, evidence-based recommendations to senior policing leaders and programme governance boards.
• Provide clear escalation, evidence and recommendations where supplier performance, service risks, testing outcomes or operational readiness issues may impact safe delivery, benefits realisation or live service stability.

Skills & Experience – Essential

• Extensive experience as a Senior Product Owner, or equivalent senior product leadership role in complex or safety‑critical environments.
• Operational SME background (policing, control room, or equivalent).
• Delivery experience across multi-team structures.
• Strong governance leadership including chairing Design Authority forums.
• Experience with service transition, acceptance criteria, and operational readiness.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills.
• Holding suppliers to account for delivery, service performance, operational readiness and agreed outcomes
• Owning or assuring operational testing and acceptance approaches across complex digital, operational or safety-critical services
• Applying user-centred design, user research, user feedback and operational insight to shape product priorities and acceptance decisions
• Product lifecycle management, including roadmap ownership, KPI definition, service performance monitoring and continuous improvement.
• Benefits-led prioritisation, investment decision support and linking product delivery to measurable business outcomes

Reasonable Adjustments:

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