Senior Product Manager - ServiceNow Portfolio

Senior Product Manager - ServiceNow Portfolio
Onsite - Overland Park, KS or Cary, NC
This role serves as a strategic Senior Product Manager accountable for the ServiceNow portfolio product management functions within D&IT Business Systems. The Senior Product Manager owns and continuously improves product management discipline across the ServiceNow portfolio and is Accountable (A of RACI) for portfolio process, intake discipline, prioritization framework, release management governance, roadmap clarity, stakeholder management, value visibility and executive decision readiness.
The ideal candidate is a strong product management practitioner who can operate across multiple ServiceNow domains, bring clarity to ambiguous needs, translate strategy into executable work. The candidate will lead the adoption of D&IT's Digital Product Operating Model (DPOM) ways of working, ensuring that application investments are intentionally selected, objectively prioritized, architecturally sound, and continuously measured to deliver enduring business value, not one-off project outputs.
Product Management Discipline/Portfolio Accountability

• Own the ServiceNow portfolio product management discipline, including intake, prioritization, roadmap governance, release management guardrails, stakeholder rhythm, and executive visibility.
• Define standards for roadmap management, backlog health, prioritization, intake readiness, user story quality, value measurement, release readiness, and stakeholder decision-making.
• Introduce practical product management tools, templates, and routines aligned to D&IT Product Management ways of working.
• Partner with D&IT Product Management leadership for mentorship, coaching, and practice alignment.
• Delegate and guide tactical product execution to Product Owner while remaining Accountable for the portfolio-level process and decision framework.

Roadmap Development, Release Governance, and Portfolio Alignment

• Own and maintain the integrated ServiceNow portfolio roadmap across capability areas, ensuring business strategy, platform health, enterprise priorities, and delivery capacity are visible in one decision view.
• Translate platform strategy, maturity goals, and roadmap priorities into structured product work.
• Accountable for roadmap alignment to the ServiceNow platform strategy, governance model, Digital Product Operating Model principles, and measurable business outcomes.
• Partner with the Director of D&IT Business Systems and Product Leads to identify roadmap dependencies, sequencing risks, and priority conflicts.
• Maintain visibility into roadmap status, assumptions, blockers, and decision points.
• Define the portfolio release management approach, including release readiness criteria, sequencing logic, decision gates, stakeholder communications, adoption checkpoints, and post-release value review.

Prioritization Model and Backlog Governance

• Own the portfolio prioritization model and backlog governance standards while the Product Owner remains Responsible for day-to-day backlog grooming and readiness.
• Partner with Product Leads to ensure backlog items are clear, actionable, and aligned to business value, risk, platform health, and strategic priorities.
• Set Definition of Ready expectations for refinement, including business need, value statement, acceptance criteria, dependencies, risk, UX impact, release consideration, and measurable outcome.
• Accountable for value-based prioritization decisions and trade-off facilitation across business value, risk reduction, platform sustainability, user experience, compliance, and delivery capacity.
• Identify duplicate, stale, unclear, or low-value backlog items and recommend disposition for review with the appropriate Product Owner.

Requirements Quality, Decision Readiness, and Portfolio Standards

• Define the standard for translating business needs into clear, structured requirements and user stories, with tactical drafting and refinement led by the Product Owner.
• Accountable for consistent quality expectations across business context, acceptance criteria, value rationale, dependencies, release impact, UX expectations, and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with business stakeholders, Product Leads, architects, developers, and analysts to clarify requirements before work enters delivery.
• Improve consistency of user story writing and refinement discipline across the ServiceNow portfolio.
• Help reduce ambiguity between business intent, platform design, and delivery execution.

Architecture, Security, Reliability & Scalability Advocacy

• Partner closely with architecture, platform engineering, and cybersecurity teams to ensure that product roadmaps explicitly include investments that improve:
• Security posture and compliance
• System reliability, resilience, and maintainability
• Scalability and performance aligned to future demand
• Balance near term feature delivery with intentional investment in foundational quality as required by DPOM's "Secure, Resilient & Scalable" principle.

Strategic Operating Cadence and Executive Decision Support

• Create a portfolio operating cadence that reduces ambiguity, accelerates decisions, and keeps tactical execution aligned without taking over day-to-day backlog work.
• Own (and create artifacts for) executive-ready materials for roadmap reviews, prioritization forums, release planning, investment decisions, governance checkpoints, and value realization updates.
• Track open items, decisions, dependencies, risks, and follow-ups across product workstreams.
• Chair or enable portfolio-level product rituals where strategic decisions, trade-offs, release sequencing, and stakeholder commitments are made visible.
• Maintain product documentation and ensure decisions are captured and communicated clearly.

Stakeholder Management and Enterprise Alignment

• Accountable for the stakeholder management model across the ServiceNow portfolio, including engagement cadence, expectation setting, prioritization transparency, and decision escalation.
• Help stakeholders understand how requests move through intake, prioritization, governance, and delivery.
• Support cross-functional alignment between D&IT Business Systems, Digital Products, security/risk stakeholders, ITSM stakeholders, portfolio stakeholders, and delivery teams.
• Escalate unresolved prioritization conflicts or decision needs to the Director of D&IT Business Systems.
• Ensure stakeholder input is captured in a structured way that supports informed decision-making.

Governance, Risk, and Product Operating Model Support

• Accountable for product inputs into the ServiceNow governance model, including prioritization rationale, roadmap implications, release readiness, value hypotheses, risk considerations, and decision options.
• Ensure work is routed through the appropriate governance path and does not bypass established intake or prioritization practices.
• Reinforce distinction between product management, capability ownership, technical design, and delivery execution.
• Partners with Product Leads to ensure product decisions are aligned to governance expectations and platform roadmap priorities.
• Support dashboard, reporting, and executive visibility needs tied to roadmap progress, backlog health, and product maturity.

Metrics Driven Product Management Culture

• Define and own the portfolio-level metrics model that shows progress, value, adoption, backlog health, release readiness, user experience, platform sustainability, and risk reduction.
• Support reporting that connects work to business outcomes, platform maturity, operational efficiency, user experience, risk reduction, and modernization goals.
• Partner with Product Owner to ensure KPI and value realization reporting is consistent across domains.
• Own executive-ready product updates for leadership review, including decisions needed, trade-offs, risks, blockers, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.