Programme Manager : Old Mutual Rewards & New Ventures at Old Mutual

Job Description

The Old Mutual Rewards & New Ventures team has an exciting opportunity for a Programme Manager interested in contributing to the growth and development of Old Mutual’s Rewards Programme and other new venture product developments in South Africa and other African markets. 
As the programme manager in the Old Mutual Rewards & New Ventures team, the key focus areas for this role will be responsibility for managing processes, engagements, stakeholders, and execution to drive rapid delivery of solutions to customers. You will act as an uber Scrum Master, interacting with various teams and leaders in various levels of the organisation. 

• You will also leverage you understanding of Agile delivery practices to transform and mature the team’s approach to managing itself and delivery to customer outcomes 
• Reporting to the Head of Rewards & New Ventures in Customer Solutions, the role plays an important part in creating effective solutions while also enabling positive futures for our customers and contributing to improving the South African savings culture.  
• This is an opportunity to be a key part of a dynamic team during an exciting period.

Key Result Areas

• Drive culture change towards agility and servant leadership within team and across broader delivery organisation.
• Coach and guide the team and organisation on how to use Agile/Scrum/SAFe practices and values to delight customers.
• Coach and guide the team on self-organising to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks.
• Assess the agile maturity of the team and organisation and coach the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organisation.
• Facilitate the team for better creativity and tries to improve the efficiency of the team.
• Create visibility of work at team and programme level to optimise value
• Work with the team and assist product owners to refine the product backlogs.
• Facilitate work estimation and ensure support the team in owning the “how” with product owner and other stakeholders informing the “what”.
• Work with the team to execute the backlog as per priority of product owner.
• Work with the product owner to ensure that prioritised work is substantiated with expected benefits and value and that delivery of the solution incorporates/promotes tracking of value.
• Produce meaningful metrics to assist the teams and provide support on how to interpret the metrics and take the correct course.
• Produce executive program reports on progress, performance, risks and provide proposals to mitigate risks
• Analyse a situation, apply critical thinking, and organise the teams around a solution by guiding the conversations with the Scrum Master and teams as required.
• Ensure observance of DoD (Definition of done).
• Increase team efficiency, motivate team and advocate for changes that will ensure quality and timeliness.
• Manage impediments to ensure avoid impact on the programme deliveries.
• Elevate and expose delivery challenges to the leadership team and propose resolutions.
• Ensure that deployments and release into production are planned and executed with relevant change controls to manage risk.
• Manage, create, and communicate clear timelines for programme increments and iterations.
• Facilitate planning activities at a programme level and ensure the teams are prepared for all ceremonies.
• Clearly articulate and communicate team planning objectives and ensure team visibility, transparency and understanding.
• Where necessary coach leaders, teams, and scrum masters in agile practices and mind-sets to remove team blockers and resolve team dependencies.
• Collaborate with Product and Solution Management, Product Owners, Product Managers, delivery teams and other stakeholders to ensure strategy alignment and execution.
• Measure and manage delivery against programme plan and commitments: o Quality. o Time to market. o Team engagement. o Business and customer outcomes o Customer engagement and satisfaction
• Work with team to arrange and conduct daily stand-up meetings, and retrospective meetings
• Organise and facilitate regular synchronization sessions to ensure awareness and alignment across deliveries
• Organise and facilitate the sprint/iteration planning meeting with the team.
• Organise and facilitate demos, showcases and feedback sessions to ensure that teams share a holistic delivery comprising feature delivery, customer value and tracking against agreed targets and business outcomes.

Role Requirement

• Relevant tertiary qualification or equivalent in Business, Commerce, Computer Science, Engineering or Information Systems. 
• Minimum 6 years of experience in complex project and program management roles with at least with 3 years leading Scrum teams.
• In-depth knowledge and experience in Agile/Scrum/Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
• Certification as a Scrum Master Certified SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master or Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) or Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) desirable.
• Knowledge of Kanban/Lean desirable.
• Knowledge and experience in using tracking and collaboration tools such as Jira and Microsoft TFS
• Experience running and facilitating core meetings and activities such as PI planning, sync sessions, demos and retros.
• Loyalty and Financial services experience preferred
• Proven track record of stakeholder and relationship management
• Passion for customers
• Strong stakeholder management, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills.

Closing Date:11th, March 2022