Senior Project Manager at Discovery Limited

Job description

About Purple

Discovery’s intention is to expand our business model into banking (subject to Regulatory Approval), and to establish a brilliant, innovative full-service retail bank in South Africa. From a regulatory perspective, this involves a lengthy and complex process the outcome of which is not guaranteed. A two-step approval is required: Firstly to obtain authorisation to establish a bank – and thereafter, after complying with all the conditions, to apply for registration as a bank. The first step, authorisation to establish a banking presence (S13 (1) of the Banks Act 94 of 1990), has been completed. A banking business may only commence once registration as a bank has been granted and Discovery has embarked on this process.

We are looking for smart, energetic, experienced and dynamic achievers who take initiative and ownership, and who thrive on constant challenges and high-speed change to join us on this journey.

If you have an entrepreneurial mind and appreciate calculated risks, then the Discovery environment will liberate you to realise your full potential.

Key Job Purpose:

The role will be responsible for both the Technical solution planning and coordination of the programme and project deliverables, which include multiple software and/or hardware implementations. The consolidation of the technical release inventories, into a software package in line with the implementation release schedule. Translating complex project plans into simple work breakdown structures, coordinating various development partner activities and ensuring that all requirements (SDLC, Release Management) are met prior to implementation. The role will act as a systems integrator by understanding all the technical dependencies across multiple projects (both business critical both software and solution based) and ensuring that associated governance and compliance criteria have been achieved prior to implementation. The role acts in close proximity to the Project Management Office (PMO), IT Release Management and The Release Authorisation Board (RAB), IT Change Management and the Change Advisory Board (CAB) and the Design Authority amongst others.

Key Outputs may include but not limited to:

Work Experience:

• Project and Programme Support
• Formulate tactical strategy and associated delivery plans related to a practice area, by managing and implementing multiple projects of higher complexity within the specified time frame, budget, quality, innovation, legal requirements and manage multifunctional interfaces, ensuring practice integration and operational implementation through the achievement of Projects objectives.
• Manage end to end process of IT related projects.
• Analyse project scope items and thrash out interdependencies between different streams and development partners and ensure that these are documented and managed optimally.
• Manage and coordinate various development teams (internal and external) to deliver as per project and programme plan, paying particular attention to interdependencies.
• Interface with the Quality Assurance testing team in planning entry criteria into QA in line with the project and programme timelines and ensure that all parties involved in the process are aligned.
• Identify and analyse business needs related to project and keep abreast of new business developments that may impact the project.
• Release and Deployment Planning:
• Document and review implementation and deployment plans in conjunction with Release Management, PMO, Development Teams and Implementation Teams.
• Work with each application deployment lead to define deployment requirements
• Review deployment documentation and highlight potential gaps and risks
• Assess readiness for solution deployment artefacts
• Manage cross release, cross unit ownership of deployment issues and interdependencies
• Ensure that the solution is deployed according to the deployment documentation
• Facilitate and manage the deployment plan, dependencies and tasks
• Consolidate Release Note inventory for CAB submission in line with the Release Schedule/ cadence
• Review and provide risk assessment of Release Inventory to inform QA function and CAB entry criteria
• Communicate with the product deployment teams on deployment readiness, order of execution and status of deployment tasks
• Track and oversee the deployment plan execution (including environment readiness tests, smoke/shakeout testing and Technical Integration Testing)
• Raise concerns/risks or support required in the execution process
• Monitor the environment post-deployment
• Provide post-deployment support (help desk, performance monitoring, issue management, etc.)
• Facilitate and coordinate deployment automation and integration of automation components between systems.
• Manage any temporary or test data loading required as part of deployment
• Track deployment outcomes and report on deployment failures and root cause as input into the Post Implementation Review activity
• Oversee and support deployment teams in deployment timing.
• Facilitate environment configuration.
• Compliance, Governance, Risk and Control Processes
• Liaise with Change and Release Management in the planning of changes and releases and ensure that all deliverables are met.
• Partake and assist in the build and maintenance of the CMDB and encourage that the logical view of services is maintained and protected.
• Contribute to the Disaster Recovery Planning activities for the applications and systems that are implemented.

Other

• Provide input to periodic operational reports according to agreed intervals (daily, weekly and monthly reports).
• Identify, document and publish knowledge for internal and customer consumption. Participate in the technical knowledge review process; ensuring the quality of published content.
• Work with internal colleagues to ensure they have the appropriate information and knowledge at hand to be successful in what they do.
• Proactively identify interconnected problems, develop and model alternative solutions as well as contingency plans to resolve value chain conflicts.
• Establish and maintain effective business relationships with customers and IT stakeholders to ensure compliance and establishing a healthy feedback channel.
• Continuously identify of improvement areas that will enhance efficiency.
• Ensure that tickets in the ITSM tool are attended to all times and reflect the correct status.
• Provide input to the consolidation of the risk profile for the area of responsibility, manage critical risks and ensure feedback integration.
• Highlight unforeseen software/ technical dependencies that inform QA/ Regression test stack Define and influence relationships and service level agreements made with internal and external stakeholders.
• Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders to ensure integrated approaches in pursuit of collective goals.

Education and Experience:

• Relevant Tertiary qualification (IT or Business) or 15+ years’ experience (non-degreed)
• Systems development and SDLC experience required
• Relevant Project Management Certification or 8 to 10 years’ relevant experience required
• At least 8 to 10 years’ experience in systems integration and project management
• Proven experience working in a large scale software project with sizeable scope and budget, in a corporate environment
• Previous experience in the banking or financial services industry will be advantageous.
• Technical SAP System knowledge/exposure an added advantage
• Technical exposure to various banking solutions and integrations e.g. Treasury, Anti Money Laundering systems, Fraud, SWIFT, VISA, Pin Management systems etc. an added advantage

Personal Attributes/Competency Profile:

• Business Acumen
• IT systems integration skills
• Conflict Resolution
• Effective Business Communication
• Planning, Management, and Measurement
• Problem Analysis & Judgement
• Programme & Project Management
• Project Administration Skills
• Project Financial Control & Reporting

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

The Company’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.