Project Manager (Retail/Financial Services)

Paracon; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 700,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Job summary

Paracon is seeking a structured, delivery-focused Project Manager to plan and deliver IS Customer Applications projects across the Customer roadmap. The role supports retail portfolios, coordinating business, IS capability, vendor and operational teams to deliver fit-for-purpose solutions through the full project lifecycle.

The mid to senior PM will manage multiple workstreams, governance, risks and budgets, and report status to the Programme Manager and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 5+ years’ experience managing IT or IS business-application projects.
• Experience with retail, customer, loyalty, VAS, payments or financial-services environment is preferred.
• Knowledge of project management disciplines, lifecycles and SDLC.

Responsibilities

• Governance: adhere to information risk, audit and IS governance frameworks and report to steering committees.
• Project Management: build accurate plans, manage dependencies, track deliverables using RAID, logs, status reports.
• Delivery: coordinate across business owners, product owners, IS capability leads, analysts and vendors.
• Relationships: maintain trusted relationships with business areas and delivery teams, communicate clearly.
• Communication: provide status reports and escalation when needed.

Job description

The strength and attitude of the candidate is more important.

Candidate needs to provide their own laptop

• The role is Mid to Senior Project Manager with Retail, Payments, VAS, SAP integration and or Loyalty experience
• Maximum hours per month – Average 173 hours per month, excluding leave and public holidays
• Maximum hours per week – 40 hours, excluding lunch hours
• Location: Kenilworth, Cape Town, Western Cape
• Full time in office, core hours 9:00am – 15:00am

Key attributes

• Proven history to show responsibility and accountability for delivering software projects on time
• Proven history of project methodology application
• Personable, professional, energetic, team player, quick to learn

ROLE

The company requires a structured, delivery-focused Project Manager to plan and deliver IS Customer Applications projects and enhancements across the Customer roadmap.

The role supports the retail based portfolios, with responsibility for coordinating business, IS capability, vendor and operational teams to deliver fit-for-purpose solutions through the full project lifecycle.

The role is suited to a Mid to Senior Project Manager who can manage multiple workstreams, drive clear governance, manage risks and dependencies, track budget and resource utilisation, and provide accurate status reporting to the Programme Manager and relevant stakeholders.

CORE TASKS

The Project Manager must be capable of:

Governance

• Adhere to the governance standard to meet Information Risk, Audit and IS governance frameworks.
• Ensure project governance through steering committees and stakeholder reporting.

Project Management

• Practise strong project management skills to build accurate plans, understand dependencies and critical paths, and track deliverables in a controlled and structured way. Use project management tools such as plans, milestone roadmaps, task trackers, RAID logs, decision logs and status reports.
• Maintain a roadmap and manage multiple business requests from complex projects to large and small enhancements simultaneously.
• Work with IS capability leads to build project delivery teams, secure the right resources at the right time and deliver against the agreed plan.
• Manage the business case and CAPEX approval processes with strong budget control and early warning of potential budget overruns.

Delivery

• Coordinate delivery across business owners, product owners, IS capability leads, architects, analysts, testers, finance teams and external vendors.
• Manage scope, delivery priorities, dependencies, risks, issues, assumptions and escalation paths across multiple workstreams.

Relationships

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with accountable business areas by understanding the business need, the intended solution and the required outcomes. Provide clear communication, adopt a customer-service approach, respond quickly to requests and deliver projects on time.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with delivery teams through knowledge, structure, negotiation, prioritisation, resource allocation and planning.
• Show respect and treat all individuals, internal and external to the company, with dignity. Adopt a professional business attitude.

Communication

• Use a simple, effective and consistent approach to communicating task tracking, milestones and deliverables, overall status, risks, issues and escalations. Complete meaningful and accurate status reports.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Structured planner who can manage multiple projects, enhancements, priorities and dependencies at the same time.
• Strong delivery discipline, follow-through and accountability for agreed timelines, scope, risks, issues and decisions.
• Clear communicator who provides accurate status reporting, manages expectations and escalates early when required.
• Effective stakeholder, vendor and cross-functional team coordinator with strong facilitation, negotiation and influencing skills.
• Practical problem solver who can work through ambiguity, changing priorities and competing demands without losing momentum.
• Sufficient technical and commercial awareness to manage integrated delivery, budgets, vendors, governance and project controls.
• Professional, calm under pressure, self-motivated and willing to take ownership to get work completed properly.

EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

• 5+ years’ experience managing IT or IS business-application projects, preferably in a retail, customer, loyalty, VAS, payments or financial-services environment.
• Practical knowledge of project management disciplines, project lifecycles, system development lifecycles and application delivery lifecycles.
• Experience delivering medium to complex projects with multiple workstreams, internal teams, vendors, business stakeholders and technology dependencies.
• Experience with retail customer solutions, with broad knowledge of business functions in one or more sectors.
• Experience managing roadmap portfolios, steering-committee packs, project status reporting and prioritised backlogs.
• Experience tracking project budgets, approved CAPEX/OPEX, actual spend, committed spend, invoicing, time booking and cost recovery.
• Knowledge and practical application of budget management, cost tracking, risk management and project controls.
• Experience with business analysis, systems analysis or solution-design documentation is advantageous.
• Experience managing external vendors or partners.
• Experience supporting compliance, governance, audit, testing, cutover, operational handover and formal project closure activities.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Relevant tertiary qualification in Information Systems, Information Technology, Business, Commerce, Project Management or a related discipline.
• Project Management certificate, diploma or recognised methodology training such as PMBOK, PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum or equivalent is advantageous.
• Additional training in business analysis, systems analysis, SDLC, change management, financial management, risk management or vendor management is advantageous.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 tools, Excel-based project tracking, SharePoint, Teams, project-status reporting and project governance documentation.