A day in the life of… Evangeline Mackie, Product Owner at Waitrose & Partners Digital
We’ve asked Evangeline Mackie what is it like to be a Product Owner at Waitrose Digital
So what do you do all day at work?
Whenever I tell people I’m a Product Owner for Waitrose, they assume I look after an actual consumable food item. Although I would TOTALLY love that (and would definitely choose cake), it’s sadly not the case!
As a Digital Product Owner, I look after the vision & strategy for a number of digital ‘products’.
‘A Digital Product is a software enabled product or service that offers some form of utility to a human being.’
Jules Ehrhardt.
In Waitrose, our digital products range from the FrontEnd checkout through to our branch picking systems — we really do consider all order journey touchpoints.
I currently look after Customer Support, Personalisation & Peak, working closely with business stakeholders to assess requirements and define a prioritised roadmap. This makes sure we are delivering the most valuable features first!
What are the people like?
Supportive, talented, fun, ambitious! — honestly the best bunch of digital natives.
Our PO community is a really diverse group and brings completely different perspectives to the table. We have some who excel in focussing on the problem at hand, others that have a great technical understanding of their Product and some that are completely customer-obsessed. It’s great to have a mixture, as these are all great PO traits and we can actively learn from one another.
And the best bits are?
Over lockdown it was absolutely amazing to see how quickly we could respond to online demand and ever-changing circumstances that we have never had to think about before. The way our teams are set up in Scrum and Kanban was a complete enabler of this and has highlighted how well we can work together as a Digital Community to support our nation.
What Waitrose Product would you recommend?
How can I pick one?
I absolutely love the Waitrose soup range. My favourite flavours are the Chicken, Coconut and Wild Rice and the Chicken and Chorizo — I mix them both with Waitrose golden vegetable rice.
What gets your goat?
It has to be an inefficient use of time. I’m all for meetings, but they need to have a specific outcome and clear next steps.
I honestly don’t know how we managed to physically get from meeting room to meeting room, grab a coffee, and pop to the loo all between meetings.
What do you get up to when you’re not working?
In my spare time, I work on my other business ventures and projects!
I am a qualified Personal Trainer and have an online wellness Network Marketing business and an events business — so my time is pretty much filled with these bits and bobs.
What advice would you give to any budding Product Owner?
Think about the problem, not the solution.
Understand your customer as if you were one.
Focus on value! What value are you bringing? Whether it be monetary, reputation, improved customer satisfaction — always be clear!
