Director: Institutional Software Solutions [South Africa]

 

Duties/Pligte

• Guiding the IT strategy and policy development, planning and budgeting for the Software Application Portfolio, in line with the University's strategy and ICT Digital Strategy;
• Managing and facilitating planning and decision-making to modernise, renew/replace and retire software applications in alignment with the IT Digital Strategy;
• Leading and facilitating the change in software deployment and sourcing;

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  Facilitating project prioritisation by institutional stakeholders and within the IT Division;
• Guiding strategic software solution implementation projects in collaboration with institutional stakeholders;
• Promoting, establishing, maintaining and reviewing the institutional software investment and funding model;
• Liaising with institutional software stakeholders within the University, peers, and with vendors and consultants;
• Advising University management and the IT Division on software application roadmaps and digitalisation opportunities in accordance with the institutional strategy;
• Providing leadership and management to the ISS team;
• Organising the ISS section and establishing and maintaining the necessary capabilities so that it can fulfil its mission. Ensuring that ISS capacity is adequately and sustainably funded to fulfil its mission.
• Key processes: ITIL change management; DevSecOps; Incident and Problem management; Software Development Lifecycle, and other legislation and standards as per the IT Governance Framework found within the IT Digital Strategy;
• Key capabilities as per the IT value chain of delivery as per the IT Digital Strategy: software development; vendor and contract management; business analysis; application architecture; data architecture; integration; relationship management with clients and stakeholders; demand management and prioritisation; and effective service delivery.
• Ensuring that skilled people are recruited, retained and developed, and are deployed in the correct roles;
• Ensuring that ISS's services meet the needs of the University as agreed per the IT SLA's of the IT Digital Strategy;
• Developing and managing internal service level agreements (and/or OLA's and ULA's) with the customer's divisions, competency centres, students and staff;
• Assisting the Chief Director: IT on achieving the set outcomes required of the IT: ISS Division/Unit;
• Identifying and managing the strategic and operational risks of the ISS portfolio;
• Promoting cooperation and engagement across the value chain of the entire IT Division;
• Facilitating and enhancing communication with the senior management of the University and all stakeholders;
• Expanding cooperation with other universities in alignment with the Chief Director: IT's stakeholder communication and engagement plan.

Job Requirements/Pos Vereistes

• An appropriate NQF 8 qualification (four-year bachelor's degree; honour's degree, postgraduate diploma) in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science and / or related fields, AND at least ten years' proven experience in a senior IT management position or similar role; OR
• An appropriate NQF 9 qualification (master's degree) in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science and / or related fields, AND eight to ten years' proven experience in a senior IT management position or similar role;
• Senior management experience in leading a software portfolio team or software development team. Senior experience in demand management capacity prioritisation for a software and applications team to manage voluminous requirements coming into the IT Division;
• Senior experience in Agile, PMBOK and hybrid methodologies of Agile and PMBOK solution delivery;
• Senior experience in DevSecOps embedment in a software and applications team;
• Senior experience in cloud solutions for a software and applications environment;
• Senior experience in technical architectural alignment and optimisation of technical solutions, API's and integration platforms;
• Excellent at building and maintaining good stakeholder relationships;
• Excellent at building and maintaining value adding vendor partnerships;
• Customer-centric and approachable in order to build a positive rapport between IT and its stakeholders (i.e., staff and students);
• Excellent analytic, technical and people skills for leading a team that supports software and applications for the University;
• Experience in working with senior stakeholders and on the level of supporting a Group CIO/Chief Director;
• Experience in analysis, specification, evaluation and implementation of IT systems;
• A sound understanding of computer systems, applications and software, networks and services, including cloud services;
• Experience in controlling an IT budget;
• Excellent organisational and leadership skills;
• Outstanding communication abilities and interpersonal skills.

Recommendation/Aanbeveling

• An appropriate Business Management qualification (in addition to the technical qualification/s stated above) is preferred;
• Experience of managing a Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service environment.

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