The Product Owner for the Life Management System (LMS) at Turnkey Africa Kenya

Role Summary

• The Product Owner (PO) owns and manages the product backlog, refining requirements, and ensuring product development efforts deliver maximum value to the business and end-users. The role bridges the gap between business needs and the development team, contributing to clear prioritization, stakeholder collaboration, and successful product delivery throughout the agile lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

Backlog & Requirements Management

• Maintain a transparent, prioritized, and continuously refined product backlog.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and users to gather requirements, translating them into actionable user stories with acceptance criteria.
• Ensure backlog items meet the principles: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.

Prioritization & Planning

• Assist in prioritizing user stories based on business value, customer needs, and technical constraints.
• Participate in backlog refinement sessions and sprint planning to ensure alignment with release goals and capacity.

Agile Delivery Support

• Actively engage in agile ceremonies — stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Provide clarity to the development team on requirements and priorities.
• Monitor sprint progress and help resolve blockers related to requirements or priorities.

Acceptance Criteria & Validation

• Collaborate with the development team to define acceptance criteria for all user stories.
• Participate in sprint reviews to validate completed stories against agreed criteria.

Release & Documentation Support

• Assist in release planning by documenting confirmed features, known issues, and upcoming priorities.
• Ensure release documentation is accurate and available for stakeholders.
• Understand CI/CD principles to support efficient deployment cycles.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as a liaison between business stakeholders and the development team to gather feedback and clarify requirements.
• Support product demos and provide updates on product progress.

Continuous Learning & Improvement

• Proactively develop skills in agile product management practices, tools, and domain knowledge.
• Seek opportunities to optimize processes for better delivery outcomes.

Behavioral Competencies

• Teamwork & Communication: Values collaboration and promotes transparency across teams.
• Curiosity & Passion: Seeks continuous improvement in self and team performance.
• Accountability & Professionalism: Takes ownership of tasks and outcomes.
• Customer Focus: Always considers business and end-user impact in decision-making.

Skills & Qualifications

Skills

• Knowledge of Agile software development practices and frameworks.
• Strong requirement elicitation, documentation, and communication skills.
• Understanding of user story creation and backlog management.
• Familiarity with Agile tools such as Jira, Confluence, or similar platforms.
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, or related field; Master’s degree in information technology or a technology-related discipline preferred
• Agile certification
• Product Owner certification

Experience           

• 2-3 years in a product role or equivalent
• Minimum 2-3 years insurance domain experience, preferably working within an insurance company or insurance technology solutions sector
• In-depth knowledge of Agile process and principles
• Outstanding interpersonal, communication, presentation and leadership skills
• Experience with technology and ability to facilitate communication between business and tech teams
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• Sharp analytical and problem-solving skills
• Creative thinker with a vision
• Attention to details