Manager - Project Strategy and Innovation at MTN

Job Outcomes / Results:

• Delivery within scope, timelines, budget and quality
• Delivery of projects following MTN project management way of work and within quality standards
• Acceptance of the various minimum completed project milestones by the project owner/sponsor
• Successful Go to Market with no negative impact on supporting channels and/or customer experience
• Reporting on project progress against plan
• Positive feedback from the project owner/sponsor on project close-out
• Proactive Management of resolution of issues and risks
• Delivers solutions that reflects the range of project management knowledge/methods/practices
• Adherence to Programme Management Office governance

Responsibilities
Project Delivery

• Manages all aspects of the project pertaining to scope, delivery timelines, budget, risks and quality to ensure successful project execution.
• Define the appropriate project governance and controls
• Define and confirm the project scope with relevant stakeholders

Governance

• Promotes adherence to governance by ensuring that relevant processes and prescribed methodologies are observed.
• Supports the Programme manager in mitigating audit, compliance, procurement and risk issues
• Foster quality deliverables
• Ensures approved processes are followed to manage deviations to scope and any other agreed project outcomes.
• Ensures that all necessary approvals are secured and in place.

Project Management

• Facilitates detailed project scoping and planning
• Facilitate the creation and maintenance of minimum key project documentation
• Manages performance of cross functional teams
• Manage complex/cross-functional projects
• Sets up and manage project governance meetings regularly
• Proactively manages key risks, issues, and dependencies and sets mitigation actions in collaboration with relevant stakeholders
• Helps document change management, communication and training requirements and facilitates identification of respective champions to drive these changes across the business

Commercial Readiness

• Ensure all cross functional impacts are identified and managed as part of the projects
• Provides input into change management and communication strategies to facilitate operationalisation of the change across all stakeholders (internal and external)
• Ensure Project & Portfolio management tool is updated weekly

Risk Management & Escalations

• Ensure projects risks are identified and managed with mitigations plans in place
• Manages and resolves team escalations to mitigate delivery risk
• Escalates issues that will result in significant time, scope, employee/customer or cost impacts if not resolved
• Manages and provides solutions to issues that require formal resolution

Performance

• Monitoring and tracking the health status of the project based on the identified constraints and objectives
• Create plans to address any deviations from scope, timelines and quality

Reporting

• Report on a regular basis to business stakeholders on progress and RAG health
• Reports in accordance with the agreed upon templates and governance structures
• Compile relevant project & portfolio reporting with Programme standards

Team building

• Identifies cross functional roles required to support project delivery and negotiate with relevant line managers for their allocation to the project
• Assists with project onboarding of the allocated team members
• Works closely with the team to clearly articulate and document team members roles and responsibilities
• Manages and resolves conflicts within the delivery project team

Stakeholder engagement:

• Build and maintain relationships with internal and external stakeholders of projects
• Build relationship with project executive sponsors and/or project owners to ensure speedy resolution of escalations.

Qualifications
Education

• Bachelor’s degree
• Project Management Certification (PMP, PMI-ACP, CAPM, Prince2 etc)
• Agile Certification advantageous (DSDM, PMI-ACP, SAFe Certification etc)

Required Skills

• Agile Expertise: An understanding of the Agile manifesto, and the four key values could be advantageous. In-depth familiarity with an Agile framework, is essential for successful implementation.
• Collaboration: Willingness to work closely with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and customers to deliver value collaboratively.
• Conflict Resolution: Ability to navigate disagreements and differences within the team, fostering a productive, agile environment and improving team effectiveness.
• Customer-Centric Approach: Focus on understanding and meeting customer needs, driving customer satisfaction and collaboration.
• Decision-Making: Superior critical thinking capabilities and making informed and timely decisions.
• Excellent Communication Skills: Proficiency in articulating ideas, needs, and progress across various levels of the organisation, promoting transparency.
• Flexibility: Capacity to navigate uncertainties and changes inherent in Agile working while focusing on goals.
• Risk Management: Skill in identifying potential project risks, assessing their impact, and devising mitigation strategies.
• Strong Organisational Skills: Ability to manage complex projects, allocate resources effectively, and ensure tasks are completed on time.