OMF IT QA Capability Manager at Old Mutual

Job Description

The IT Capability Manager is responsible for building, leading and motivating QA capability specialists, ensuring that they have the appropriate skills and competencies available within their respective teams and fosters a multi-disciplinary delivery team culture.

A key responsibility of the Capability Manager will be to support cross-functional teams as they adopt an agile approach to delivery. The primary purpose of the role is to analyse specific gaps and develop sustainable strategies to ensure effective and efficient business outcomes for Information Technology. The role supports timely and appropriate skill, knowledge and behavioral development as well as succession planning for individuals.

Requires strong communication, interpersonal, organizational and team building skills, business judgment, and proven expertise in directing the efforts of a technical staff. In-depth knowledge of business functions and understanding of business operations, strategies and objectives.

Main activities

Actively demonstrate the importance of collaboration by working closely with all stakeholders to resolve resource issues and blockers across delivery teams.

• Plan and track progress against strategic road maps whilst challenging and providing direction.
• Contribute to the building of a strategically agile culture alongside the senior management team.
• In conjunction with the Service Delivery Managers, ensure the staffing levels, skills and capabilities meet demand.
• Communicate with the capability specialists to ensure they have the support and understanding they need to work at maximum effectiveness.
• Identify capability training and development requirement, ensuring employee knowledge and skills are appropriate to their current and future roles.
• Lead the ongoing professional development of the capability specialists and the promotion of best practice within these teams.
• Contribute to the performance management for team members actively managing both strong and poor performance.
• In conjunction with the Service Delivery Managers, understand the pipeline of work. Strategically plan for future business needs and direct the timely deployment of appropriate resources.
• In conjunction with the Service Delivery Managers, identify and organise additional resources based on skill capability and the requirements of the flexible delivery teams.
• Establish and formalise governance, disciplines and controls for a specialist function.

Technical Operations and Development

• Lead the strategic development of a specialist function and think strategically about how to improve, optimize, and expand it to meet the goals and objectives of the business and IT strategy, in conjunction with the Capability Lead.

Technical Effort Management

• Manage capability within budget and schedules

Organizational Management

• Plan and manage capability budgets.
• Liaise with other relevant groups, partner organizations, and external vendors as needed in relation to operational matters.
• Advise and implement IT disciplines and approaches within a fast-paced tech environment.
• Communicate complex technical information to non-technical people in a comprehensible form.
• Identify improvements to operational systems, processes, and policies in support of IT and business strategy.

Scope of Influence

Advises Peers, Engineers, Manager, Senior Manager

• Responds to stakeholder needs and influences the development of alternative solutions.
• Influences team/squad software architecture (may extend to related teams/squads).
• Actively mentors/develops others - improving their skills, their knowledge of your solutions, and their ability to get things done.
• Assesses readiness of intermediate/senior software engineers for promotion. You actively participate in the hiring process.

Requirements

• Relevant Bachelor’s degree or Diploma in Information Technology.
• Relevant ISTQB/ISEB certificate in Software and Agile Testing.
• Minimum 10 years extensive experience in a quality assurance capacity.
• High level of technology awareness and experience of recruiting and /or procuring a wide range of technical expertise.
• A cooperative and outcome focused approach to employee and peer interactions with proven ability to coach and mentor employees through change, harnessing strengths and abilities to affect positive change outcomes.
• Exceptional knowledge and understanding of tools and methods for delivering IT Solutions.
• Demonstrated ability, managing the capabilities needed to deliver in a complex operational environment.
• Ability to guide and prioritise the diverse human resources needs of a specialist team of indirect reports with management experience.