Associate Product Owner

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Job Summary

• Support product strategy and long-term vision to deliver best in class digital products
• Contribute to the definition of product vision (short to long term) and translate it into an executable product strategy
• Conduct and support user research and usability studies, collaborating with Product Owners, designers, developers and research teams across the 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 product teams and relevant stakeholders to develop and maintain product roadmaps aligned to the broader enterprise product portfolio
• Collaborate with data teams to define and implement data pipelines that extract, transform, and load data into an information product supporting product insights and informed decision-making
• Analyse, and interpret the voice of the customer through a variety of data sources and in collaboration with Customer Experience function
• Ensure end-to-end ownership of assigned digital projects or initiatives from conceptualisation to project delivery, adoption and success management
• Deliver assigned digital solutions using agile methodologies, ensuring consistency of approach and compliance with relevant policies and processes
• Critically evaluate business ideas from a customer value and commercial viability perspective
• Collaborate with relevant Product Owners and internal/external partners to co-create new digital products and services
• Actively contribute to the design and development of various digital projects / solutions alongside relevant Product Owners and cross-functional delivery teams
• Drive or collaborate in ideation (from colleagues or other inspirations) by sourcing, shaping and incubating ideas into prototypes and proofs of concept that address customer or business challenges
• Present proofs of concept to get go/no go decision from various internal stakeholders as required.
• Test, gather, analyse and incorporate customer feedback to continuously improve products, features and prototypes.

Job Description

Drive Product Strategies

• Support the Product Owner (PO) by translating product vision into executable artefacts (features, epics, workflows, user stories)

• Conduct and supports user research, usability testing, and customer discovery, feeding insights into PO decisions

• Collaborate with designers and engineers to produce wireframes, journeys, and backlog artefacts

• Investigate business problems, gather requirements, and evaluate solution options within the defined domain

• Proactively apply structured analysis techniques (interviews, workshops, use cases, scenarios)

• Support solution design discussions with vendors and Absa technical teams (without owning architectural sign-off)

Implementation and execution

• Own day-to-day execution within the product team for the assigned domain

• Take end-to-end responsibility for:

  • Business requirements documentation

  • Process analysis and functional design

  • User stories, acceptance criteria, and backlog readiness

• Ensure cohesive end-to-end design across CX, operations, and solution design

• Facilitate sprint ceremonies, workshops, and backlog refinement sessions

• Coordinate with specialist teams and third-party vendors to ensure delivery readiness

• Track delivery progress, quality, risks, and benefits realisation, escalating issues to the PO

• Lead problem-solving and issue resolution within agreed decision boundaries

• Coordinate with support teams to ensure alignment between change and run activities, support timely resolution of production issues, and ensure root-cause analysis and escalation where required

Stakeholder Management

• Manage operational and working-level stakeholders across Business Units, control functions, other internal teams, and vendors

• Prepares approval packs, artefacts, and supporting documentation for PO-led forums

• Drive alignment on detailed requirements and delivery timelines ensuring adherence to quality standards, risk and governance policies

• Support effective customer experience delivery across digital channels

• Mentor project/product team members and contribute to team capability building

Control and Governance

• Ensure delivery artefacts comply with Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework and other Absa policies, risk frameworks, and governance standards

• Coordinate risk assessments, compliance reviews, and control checks

• Track incidents, risk events, and audit actions for monthly reporting purposes

• Determine action plans to effectively reduce and manage risk issues related to Absa Internal Audit findings, Management Assurance findings, Compliance issues, SOX requirements and operational risk

• Ensure non-functional requirements (security, performance, testing) are met before release

• Seek clearances from various stakeholders including compliance, legal, risk, IT etc. on proposed solution and adhere to the organisation’s process for project / product roll-outs with necessary roll-back plan for every change

• Support go-live readiness including penetration testing, UAT, and release documentation and endeavour to ensure bug free release to the production environment

Change Management

• Design and execute change management activities within the domain

• Review existing processes and digital solutions for continued relevance and performance

• Ensure all changes follow approved governance and release processes

• Coordinate rollback plans, release readiness, and post-implementation reviews

• Gather post-release customer and business feedback and feed insights back into the backlog

Education and Experience Required

• Graduate

• At least 4 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

Further Education and Training Certificate (FETC): Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)