Introduction
These are exciting times at MOJ Digital and Technology. We have a clear vision – to develop a digitally-enabled justice system that works more simply for users – and we’re looking for talented people to help us achieve it.
We’re making things better by building adaptable, effective services and making systems that are simple to use for staff and citizens. It can be challenging but it’s also important and rewarding.
As well as doing great work, we’re creating a place that’s great to do work in. We offer tip-top kit, brilliant training opportunities and support from expert colleagues. On top of that, you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued.
Product Managers at MOJ work on exciting products in support of services that improve lives. It is an opportunity to work with committed and talented user researchers, developers, designers, analysts, agile, and content specialists who share a vision for making better government through the smarter use of technology.
The team
The Central Digital team is a centre of excellence to ensure the MoJ is becoming more digital and focusing on the right things to digitally transform the justice system and minimise pain for our users. We provide digital products and services for partners in our core operational teams (HQ) and the courts system (HMCTS), as well as offering user centred design, research and digital consultancy for the wider department. Life’s too short not to do something extraordinary, so join us and help improve millions of lives.
The products we work on include:
- software for the public, like ‘Visit someone in prison’, to improve access to justice and help deliver a modern courts and justice system
- software for internal users, like our intranet, to transform our department and improve the working lives of 70,000 staff
- platforms and APIs to help build our software like our Cloud Platform to make how our product development simpler and smarter
We’re recruiting product managers to join one of three teams:
- Transformed Department, whose vision is to champion a digital culture that helps make working life at MOJ easy, enjoyable and productive
- Tactical Products, whose vision is to build, maintain, improve and replace live services in line with ongoing user needs and identified risks
- HMPPS Digital whose vision is to modernise our technology and services for prison staff. We’re replacing monolithic systems with modern joined-up services, designed and built around user needs.
The product team you’ll join will be agreed closer to your start date.
The role
We’re looking for an individual with strong interpersonal skills who likes working in a delivery focused, agile environment with multidisciplinary teams. You also contribute to our Product Manager community and share your skills and experiences with others across the MOJ, and across government.
You will be an experienced product manager leading a multidisciplinary team, supporting and continuously improving products of significant scale and complexity.
You will:
- take products through discovery, alpha, beta and live phases of development with the goal of making government services simpler, easier and faster to use.
- devise and iterate the product roadmap and backlog,
- be a champion for user needs, document product knowledge, and communicate plans and progress through various channels including the blog, stakeholder meetings and demos
- be an active part of the broader product management community, receiving coaching and mentoring from your senior colleagues
- take part in informal support networks with your peers.
You’ll have:
- Product ownership – Capturing user needs to inform decision-making and prioritisation, and translation into actionable goals for a team (often through tools such as the backlog and user stories). You’ll be working to at least ‘practitioner’ level, capable of working with a range of specialists in a multidisciplinary team and applying the tools, terms, and concepts in a variety of ways to suit your context.
- Strategic ownership and lifecycle management – Building the overall value proposition, business model, vision and roadmap that enable us to focus on outcomes, not outputs. You’ll be capable of building a strategy from scant information and getting buy-in from colleagues, and capable of understanding shifts in strategy as a product moves through its lifecycle.
- Problem ownership and user-focus – We share our intention to solve problems, not commitments to specific features, and are looking for people who can explore and define problems before designing solutions.
- Agility – We believe in the intent behind the Agile Manifesto and welcome people who focus on releasing value to users early and often, by clearly articulating your hypotheses, and demonstrating dedication to improving team performance. You’ll be able to support your team to choose the best delivery model(s) to suit your context and increase the value of your product (using concepts such as minimum viable product and story maps).