Product Operations Strategist - (Hybrid in Minneapolis)

POSITION SUMMARY

Help build the future of Product at NMDP as a Product Operations Strategist supporting our new Product Center of Excellence. In this highly collaborative role, you’ll transform big-picture product goals into scalable processes, playbooks, tools, training, and operating practices that make teams more effective. You’ll work across the organization to strengthen idea intake, portfolio planning, roadmap governance, product reporting, and continuous improvement. If you’ve helped product teams adopt new tools and ways of working and can lead through influence, this is an opportunity to make a visible impact from the ground up.

The role turns product strategy into repeatable organizational practices. This includes maintaining product standards and playbooks, improving the use of product management tools, supporting annual and quarterly planning, monitoring portfolio and product health, and helping teams adopt consistent ways of working. The Product Analyst also supports the Product Model Transformation by coordinating activities, tracking decisions and dependencies, measuring adoption, and identifying opportunities to improve the effectiveness of NMDP’s product teams.

ACCOUNTABILITIES
Product Center of Excellence and Operating Model
• Advance and continuously improve NMDP’s Product Center of Excellence, product operating model, and shared ways of working.
• Develop and maintain product standards, guidance, playbooks, templates, checklists, role definitions, and governance materials.
• Document clear expectations for product discovery, strategy, roadmaps, prioritization, lifecycle management, outcome measurement, and product reviews.
• Promote consistency across product teams while allowing practices to be adapted appropriately to different products and stages of maturity.
• Conduct periodic product practice maturity assessments and recommend actions that strengthen team effectiveness and organizational capability.
• Maintain a centralized source of truth for Product COE materials, standards, and reusable resources.

Portfolio Planning and Governance
• Support the development and maintenance of NMDP’s integrated product portfolio strategy and roadmap.
• Support standardized processes for idea intake, opportunity assessment, prioritization, business case development, and investment decision-making.
• Prepare portfolio-level reporting, meeting materials, decision records, action items, and follow-up communications.
• Track portfolio dependencies, risks, capacity considerations, strategic alignment, and progress toward intended outcomes.
• Ensure that product decisions are supported by clear criteria, consistent evidence, and transparent governance.

Product Tools, Data and Reporting
• Support effective use of NMDP’s product management and collaboration tools, including Aha!, Jira, Confluence, reporting platforms, and related systems.
• Partner with Technology and platform owners to define tool workflows, required fields, taxonomy, integrations, access, reporting, and governance.
• Establish and monitor product data-quality expectations to ensure portfolio and roadmap information is accurate, current, and decision-ready.
• Develop dashboards and reporting that provide visibility into portfolio health, roadmap progress, priorities, outcomes, risks, dependencies, and product practice adoption.
• Identify opportunities to simplify workflows, reduce duplicate entry, automate routine work, and improve the user experience of Product team tools.
• Maintain documentation and provide support for product tools, templates, and standard workflows.

Transformation Coordination and Continuous Improvement
• Support day-to-day coordination of the Product workstream within NMDP’s Product Model Transformation.
• Maintain transformation plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, and adoption measures.
• Facilitate working sessions and help cross-functional teams translate objectives into practical operating changes.
• Research relevant product operations, agile, analytics, platform, and AI practices and evaluate their potential application at NMDP.
• Use AI and automation responsibly to improve research, synthesis, reporting, documentation, and routine Product Operations activities.
• Validate AI-generated information for accuracy, relevance, bias, privacy, confidentiality, and appropriate use.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
Knowledge of
• Product operating models, Product Operations, product lifecycle management, and portfolio governance.
• Product strategy, roadmaps, prioritization, outcome measurement, and product review practices.
• Agile product delivery models and the roles of Product Management, Product Ownership, Technology, UX, Analytics, and Operations.
• Product Agile models, standards, ceremonies, and templates.
• Process analysis, workflow design, continuous improvement, and organizational change practices.
• Product management and collaboration tools such as Aha!, Jira, Confluence, Microsoft 365, Miro, or comparable platforms.
• Reporting and data-visualization concepts used to communicate portfolio health, progress, risk, and outcomes.

Ability to
• Translate broad operating model goals into clear processes, standards, templates, tools, and implementation plans.
• Organize complex portfolio information and develop clear, decision-ready reporting for leaders and product teams.
• Analyze workflows and operating data to identify gaps, bottlenecks, duplication, and improvement opportunities.
• Facilitate planning sessions, governance meetings, workshops, and cross-functional working groups.
• Build productive relationships and influence stakeholders in a matrixed organization without relying on direct authority.
• Communicate clearly with technical, operational, product, and executive audiences.
• Balance organizational consistency with the practical needs of individual product teams.
• Manage multiple priorities, dependencies, and deliverables in a changing environment.
• Apply AI and automation responsibly while protecting sensitive and confidential information.
• Operate in an innovative and changing environment with the objective of testing, learning, and iterating to continually improve products and services.

Education and/or experience
• Bachelor's degree in analytics, business, economics, information systems, technology, healthcare administration, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 5 or more years of experience in Product Operations, product management, portfolio management, business operations, transformation, agile enablement, business analysis, or a related discipline.
• Experience supporting product teams or a product operating model in a cross-functional, matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated experience developing or improving processes, governance, reporting, templates, tools, or organizational standards.
• Experience coordinating complex initiatives involving multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience working effectively with cross-functional teams in a matrix environment.
• Understands healthcare/biopharma products and services and is experienced at influencing internal teams (Finance, IT, sales, marketing, operations) and developing product strategies, roadmaps and product management.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Experience establishing or supporting a Product Center of Excellence, Product Operations function, transformation office, or product practice.
• Experience administering or supporting product workflows and reporting in Aha!, Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps, Power BI, Tableau, or comparable platforms.
• Experience with portfolio planning, roadmap governance, idea intake, prioritization frameworks, product health reporting, or quarterly business reviews.
• Experience designing training, onboarding, communities of practice, or change-adoption programs.
• Experience in healthcare, healthcare technology, biopharma, nonprofit healthcare, or another regulated environment.
• Experience using AI, automation, and analytics to improve operational processes and decision support.