Product Owner - Agent Ops at Mukuru

• We are looking for an experienced Product Owner who enjoys a challenge. This role would afford you the opportunity to own and drive product strategy in fast-paced, agile team environment, while collaborating across verticals in the business. Our Product Owners are a key part of our process to help facilitate a diverse group of bright and passionate people, who are responsible for building and operating our enterprise level systems at the core of the business.
• The main purpose of this role is to maximise the value of technical capability to the business while driving innovation and ensuring customers are at the forefront of the process. This specific role is focussed on enabling the agents within Mukuru through an effective toolset for onboarding, remuneration, incentives, ongoing management and offboarding. The Product Owner reports directly to the Head of Product Domain: Customer.
• This position is responsible for taking a leading role in driving innovation within the Customer domain, in addition to defining features, prioritising these together with a Scrum team and estimating timelines to provide a clear roadmap for the product.
• The Product Owner liaises extensively with the business to ensure business needs are effectively mapped to definable products & features. This position provides support to the agile Scrum team. Internal liaison takes place with department heads, operational areas and the broader IT team. External liaison takes place with 3rd parties - both partners and suppliers.

Duties And Responsibilities (include But Is Not Limited To)

• Driving product development in line with company’s strategic goals, vision and business architecture

Defining product roadmaps and iterative innovations based on market analysis, by:

• Working closely with stakeholders from all business areas to build a deep understanding of the product
• Keeping abreast of market trends and technical advancements that support the Mukuru product vision
• Liaising with various industry partners around service integration and product offerings

Analysing product needs and opportunities and translating these into solutions to ensure:

• Ease and consistency of the customer’s journey
• Simple, maintainable systems that are fit for purpose
• Stability, performance and scalability to meet the needs of the business
• Flexibility to cater for innovation within the Mukuru domain/ambitions
• Collaborating with Business Analysts to conduct workshops, define functional and non-functional requirements and ensure that these are relatable to products
• Maintaining a prioiritised product backlog in order to maximise ROI of the product
• Working closely with the Scrum Master around team capacity, understanding the team velocity and how this may impact commitment

Supporting the day-to-day needs of the Scrum team in understanding the requirements and priorities:

• Collaborating closely with the Scrum Master to ensure that Scrum ceremonies are well structured for the team
• Ensuring the team understand stories and tasks in the backlog to the level required
• Liaising with the team for scoping and estimation on work
• Creating sprint goals with the team
• Helping to resolve impediments should they arise
• Taking ownership of product/feature communication and release planning (with the support of a Project/Release Manager if applicable)

Key Requirements

• Grade 12 or equivalent (Essential)
• Related tertiary qualification (Essential) with Information Systems (Desirable)
• Recognised product owner/business analysis/information systems qualification (Desirable)
• 3 – 5 years’ experience as a Product Owner, Project Manager or Business Analyst
• Previous experience working in an Agile environment (preferably Scrum)
• Experience in the financial industry (Desirable)
• Experience customer service (Desirable)
• Knowledge of financial accounting
• Knowledge of the business operations and products
• Knowledge of agile methodology
• Knowledge of systems/technical knowledge

Additional Skills

• Analytical skills
• Multitasking skills
• Computer skills
• Verbal and written
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills
• Attention to detail