Senior Manager Operational Readiness

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group Job Summary Develop & implement portfolio (multiple BU) technology operational readiness plans, integrate change & release plans with other portfolio plans & ensure the successful deployment of technology updates & changes in various environments (e.g. production, DR &UAT) with minimal to no disruption & or impact to service provisioned to customers. This includes but is not limited to: • Change & Release Planning • Scheduling • Resource, Capacity & Capability planning & alignment • Coordination • Prioritisation • Risk, Governance & Compliance • Change Controls • Change Approvals • Quality Assurance • Knowledge & Document Management • Monitoring parameters • Overall operational readiness (people, process, systems) Job Description

• Build knowledge & expertise in bank wide architecture & technology stacks (products & services) to enable effective operational readiness planning & execution
• Act as the custodian of & embed the organisation’s operational readiness framework across the portfolio (e.g. change & release procedures & standards release standards & procedures, toolkits etc.)
• Build operational readiness awareness & capability across the portfolio
• Partner the portfolio Service Delivery teams & Technology product & service tribes & squads, to translate technology roadmaps into operational change & release plans
• Facilitate integration processes with other portfolio leads to identify change & release risk & align planning & prioritisation efforts to achieve minimal disruption to customers
• Develop detailed change & release documentation & communication across the change & release lifecycle (reflecting the scope of the changes, risks & risk implications of proposed changes, prioritisation, schedules, resource requirements, acceptance criteria, roles & responsibilities, integration points, quality assurance processes, monitoring parameters and processes etc. Do this across the change & release lifecycle (pre-during-post change & release)
• Coordinate all change controls & change approval processes with the appropriate governance forums
• Lead regular operational readiness reviews ahead of the change & release ‘go live’ & identify risks & mitigating actions
• Leverage insights from operational readiness reviews & past events (DR, MIM etc.) to align people, processes & systems across portfolios ahead of the changes & releases
• Hold accountability for the alignment of changes & releases to Group Architecture, Infrastructure, Security, DR & regulatory standards
• Translate the change & release plans into detailed project / program / orchestration plans. These plans must include: milestones, Go / No Go activities, detailed schedules, prioritization, interdependencies, testing & qa requirements, acceptance criteria, approvals etc. for all pre-prod & prod activity
• Facilitate & coordinate all change & release implementation & communications
• Facilitate ‘lessons learnt’ reviews with relevant stakeholders across the value chain & leverage lessons learnt to improve overall operational readiness processes & practices for the portfolio
• Coordinate & oversee the successful implementation of all changes & releases
• Monitor change & release performance & metrics post-prod, identify risk & implement mitigating actions
• Manage the “single source of truth” for all technology changes across the portfolio (pre, during & post implementation)
• Lead portfolio specific incident & event management processes during the change / release process (where incidents occur) and ensure appropriate coordination across the value chain for their resolution
• Implement document & knowledge management systems & processes for all Portfolio related change & release information
• Manage all change & release reporting for the portfolio (pre, during & post change & release)
• Stay ahead of the curve on operational readiness, change, release & incident management best practices
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of operational readiness frameworks & tools

Accountability: Finance, Risk & Governance

• Ensure alignment to all Group Technology Standards, Processes & Practices (Engineering & DevOps, Security, Architecture, Infrastructure, Change & Release, DR)
• Ensure operational readiness planning & implementation alignment to relevant industry standards e.g. ITIL, Agile, DevOps etc
• Participate risk & governance processes e.g audit
• Lead reporting & remediation on all non-compliant operational readiness activity– on time & quality & in alignment with Group & Regulatory standards
• Participate & positively contribute to various risk & governance forums e.g. architecture etc.
• Ensure alignment of all portfolio operational readiness plans to Group & Regulatory requirements
• Maintain effective MI, knowledge management & document management processes & practices aligned to Group & Regulatory standards and practices

Accountability: People

• Leverage strong capacity management tools and processes to ensure the right resource & capability mix to deliver on operational readiness plans
• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever evolving business / client environment (ahead of demand)
• Build a high performance team environment through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback etc.)
• Leverage coaching expertise in all activity to drive improved technical service delivery to the organisation

Required Skills, Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in IT or a related IT Diploma
• An advantage to ITIL 4 and AWS Fundamental Certificate
• Minimum 5 years experience in IT Operations or IT Management
• Minimum 5 years experience in Change or Incident Management
• Must have strong Stakeholder Relationship skills

Education Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank. Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised