Product Owner

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Job Summary

• Drive product strategies and long-term vision to deliver best in class digital products
• Craft product vision (short to long term) and translate that into an executable product strategy
• Conduct user research and usability testing and customer validation, collaborating with designers, developers and research teams across end-to-end lifecycle
• Participate in market research, competitive analysis, and whitespace analysis to identify opportunities for new and enhanced features and functionalities
• Facilitate the design of customer experience (CX), UI and UX, ensuring customer-centric outcomes
• Partner with agile product teams to develop and maintain product roadmaps aligned to the broader enterprise product portfolio
• Collaborate with data teams to define and implement data pipelines and information products supporting product insights and informed decision-making
• Evaluate, analyse, and interpret the voice of the customer using multiple qualitative and quantitative data sources, in collaboration with the Customer Experience function
• Provide end-to-end ownership of assigned digital projects from conceptualisation to project delivery, adoption and success management
• Deliver digital solutions using agile methodologies, ensuring consistency of approach and compliance with relevant policies, standards and governance
• Critically evaluate business ideas from both customer value and commercial viability perspectives
• Drive out the definition and achievement of customer and business outcomes that underpin the value proposition
• Collaborate with Associate Product Owners, internal/external partners to co-create new digital products and services
• Design and actively contribute to the development of digital products / solutions alongside cross-functional deliver teams
• Drive ideation by sourcing, and incubating ideas (from colleagues or other inspirations) into prototypes and proofs of concept that address customer or business challenges
• Present proofs of concept to seek support from various internal stakeholders for go/no go investment decisions
• Test, gather, analyse and incorporate customer feedback to continuously improve products, features and prototypes

Job Description

 Drive Product Strategies

• Own and drive the product strategy, backlog and long-term vision for the domain aligned to Absa business strategy, portfolio priorities and funding cycles

• Accountable for value maximisation and roadmap prioritisation for the domain while balancing customer value, commercial impact, risk and delivery capacity

• Lead scope, sequencing, and trade-off discussions, recommending decisions and securing approval through established governance structures

• Engage with key stakeholders to shape and refine product direction, providing insight-led recommendations based on customer, market, and performance data

• Ensure that product roadmaps are defined, prioritised, approved, and communicated at the appropriate steering committees and portfolio forums

• Conduct and/or validate customer research, usability insights, and problem statements to ensure strategic relevance and alignment to product strategy

• Ensure alignment between business objectives, customer needs, and technology strategy, including high-level solution direction.

Implementation and execution

• Accountable for end-to-end delivery outcomes of the product roadmap, including customer value, adoption, benefits realisation, and commercial impact to enable customer acquisition, retention and cross selling

• Ensure delivery focuses on (1) achieving defined business and customer outcomes, not just feature or requirement completion; and (2) promoting coherence across customer experience, operational, and solution design

• Provide prioritisation direction and timely decisions to unblock delivery and manage trade-offs.

• Coordinate with cross-team, cross-domain, and vendor stakeholders to resolve delivery dependencies, ensure completion of specialist specifications, and secure the required resources and expertise to support delivery.

• Develop the solution architecture with vendors / Absa Regional Office to meet the business needs

• Monitor delivery progress, timeline, performance, quality, and cost against agreed measures, own delivery success metrics, and ensure post-implementation tracking of outcomes and benefits.

• Escalate material delivery risks, issues, and dependency constraints through appropriate governance structures

• Accountable for compiling of business requirements documentation, process analysis/design, user stories and acceptance criteria as well as dependencies, change control and risk management within the workstreams or functional improvement teams

• Clearly define roles and responsibilities of each team member for project success

• Lead the product delivery team to produce required artifacts (including wireframes and user journeys) and facilitate project meetings and workshops, providing clear progress updates and management information to relevant stakeholders in line with the product roadmap

• Investigate business and delivery issues, assess improvement opportunities using structured analysis methods to capture customer needs and external perspectives, and identify viable solutions aligned with the product strategy

Stakeholder Management

• Own and manage stakeholder relationships across Business Units, Technology leadership, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Finance, and external vendors/partners

• Secure approvals for roadmap changes, funding adjustments, and material scope decisions

• Represent or provide input for the product domain in enterprise, transformation, and Exco-level forums as required.

• Foster collaboration across teams to drive alignment to shared objectives and outcomes, while supporting a culture of continuous development, mentoring, and high-performing teamwork

• Build strong working relationships with business and senior stakeholders to manage objections, provide recommendations, and facilitate alignment on scope, direction, and investment decisions to maintain delivery momentum

• Responsible for closing down debate on requirements scope and detail in order to keep the delivery on track

Control and Governance

• Responsible for risk management, regulatory compliance, and control effectiveness across the product domain while ensuring adequate controls are in place and promoting a culture of proactive compliance

• Ensure compliance with:

  • Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework

  • Regulatory and legislative requirements

  • Absa internal policies, standards, and controls

• Own responses to audit findings, management assurance actions, compliance issues, SOX requirements, and operational risk events

• Secure required risk, compliance, and governance approvals for solution design and production releases

• Ensure security, resilience, and non-functional risk considerations are appropriately addressed, while understanding and managing risks and risk events relevant to the role

• On a monthly basis review all reported incidents or risk events together with supporting investigating documents. Identify high-risk areas and create mechanisms to address risks in future

• Ensure production releases meet the Bank’s security, penetration testing, performance, and load-testing standards, with appropriate controls and remediation in place, and no outstanding critical bugs

Change Management

• Support and monitor change impact, customer adoption, and realised value following product releases

• Periodically review existing business processes and digital projects to check if they are meeting the desired objective and are relevant in the current competitive scenario

• Analyse customer feedback, performance metrics, and market insights to recommend and motivate material changes to product scope, sequencing, or product direction for approval through established governance structures.

• Support and coordinate change initiatives that materially affect customers, operations, or risk posture, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders

Education and Experience Required

• Graduate  

• At least 5 years’ experience in Digital Project Management

• Passionate and committed to over-coming internal barriers to disruptive innovation.

• Passion for customer success and deep interest in understanding client needs.

• Be able to deal with unclear requests and high volume of requests

• Ability to work under time and target pressure

• Strong interpersonal & communication skills

• Strong relationship management skills

• Strong problem-solving skills

• Strong digital acumen

Knowledge & Skills: (Maximum of 6)

• Makes prompt clear decisions (Advanced)

• Takes responsibility for actions, projects & people (Advanced)

• Takes initiative, act confidently, works independently (Expert)

• Initiates and generates activity (Advanced)

• Keeps up to date with competitor info (Advanced)

• Relevant business and technology knowledge (Advanced)

• Displays leadership(Advanced)

• Demonstrates integrity (Advanced)required

Competencies: (Maximum of 8 competencies)

• Deciding and initiating action

• Adapting and responding to change

• Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking

• Relating and networking

• Persuading and influencing

• Creating and innovating

• Working with people

• Contract negotiation

IT Skills: Preferred

• Operating Systems :           Windows 2000/NT/XP/2003/7, Vista, MS-DOS, Linux

• Technology                :        ASP, .Net, Java Script, php, Apache, AWS

• Databases                  :        Oracle, MS SQL, MS Access, MySQL

• UX / CMS Tools           :        Figma, Adobe XD, Wordpress

• Others                        :        Software Project Management, Business Process Improvement, Business Analysis Techniques etc.

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Information Technology