Context
The Service Delivery VAS Planning department consists of a group of technically adept people responsible for the planning, implementation and optimisation of VAS technologies and supplementary systems that are core to MTN’s VAS and Data Service offerings.  One is entrusted with decision making that is integral in the determination of the future successes that VAS services will have for MTN. This is a highly pressured environment, and one must be able to think ones feet 
The Manager must be willing to be involved in all aspects of VAS Planning. The position requires someone that: is enthusiastic to meet any challenge, loves technology, is prepared to spend vast amounts of times reading and researching and is hands on.
One must develop strong relationships with all Service Delivery Team members, Internal MTN Clients , External partners and vendors

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA’s)                                                                           
•    Customer
o    Requirements Analysis: Play an active role in requirements Analysis. This means that we need to provide comprehensive input on Requirements Definitions, Marketing Plans, Marketing Roadmaps, Marketing Strategy as well as VAS Team Strategy. Review all Business requirements documentation from the perspective of whether they illustrate proper subscriber experience and relevant use cases.  
o    Business Project Tracking & Management: Keep of all project progress and provide project status updates as well as ensure that feedback is provided on Resourcing versus Project Load. Track progress all phases of a project by identifying the high level milestones and reporting back regularly against these milestones ensuring that a full chronology of events (status, decisions and risks) are kept for each. 
o    Product Ownership: Work with Line Management to ensure that all products are assigned owners and that product documentation and reporting is put into place.
o    Technical Landscape and Business Proposals Presentations: Present , Underutilized capabilities of our Systems,  Product ideas, Future Technical Landscapes to the Business as regularly as possible:
•    Internal
o    System Architecture and Functional Requirements Specifications:  Ensure that each System or logical group of Systems should have Functional Requirements Specifications that are updated for each new requirement 
o    Reporting & Data Management:  Ensure that all systems and products have reporting
o    System Arch, Capacity, Utilization, Health, Roadmap and System Evolution Presentations: Deliver quarterly reports for all systems which includes a views on system topology, health, functioning, products supported and all projects effecting the system evolution to date 
o    System Documentation: Ensure that all systems (or set of systems) are properly documented. Documents include Technical Architectures,  Installation & Operations Guides, 3rd Party Interface Documents,  ATP  Documents and Topology overviews
o    Internal Project Tracking & Management:  The same applies as per Business Project Tracking except that Business does not need to understand all the details of our internal projects but need to view such that they are aware of impact on their projects.
o    Roadmaps & Strategy: Establish and own roadmaps, including projects that need funds and don’t need funds that form objectives of what to work towards and system evolution against service, subscriber growth and product trends
o    Capacity and Event Plans: Ensure that documentation is maintained that identifies capacity upgrades that are required.
o    Policies, Processes and Procedures: Ensure that Policies and Procedures around Systems and Products are in place in order to ensure MTN maintains their ISO status.
o    Incident or Event Reporting: Major network issues (incidents) and Major events  require reports
o    E2E Testing: Ensure that as many systems as possible are put into in place to test Subscriber Experience. 
•    Financial
o    Financial Budgeting and conformance to MTN Financial and Budgetary Processes: Develop budgets taking into account capacity growth, end of life replacements & enhancements in system performance. Comply with MTN budgetary and financial processes at all times
o    Track the cost lifecycle of each system: Be able to identify critical junctures for proper budgetary planning such as end-of-life or de-support of components or systems
o    Billing and Assurance Management:  Ensure up to date documentation exists showing all record types and fields & traffic cases.
o    Track all Licenses and HW for your area: Track all Licenses and Hardware and work with Operations to make sure that all HW and SW support is covered and that License renewals happen.
o    Reduce OPEX Spend:  Take the initiative to reduce OPEX expenditure where possible 
•    People (Learning and Growth)
o    Knowledge Management: This is the set of proactive activities that one needs to undertake to support an organization in creating, assimilating, disseminating, and applying its knowledge. Knowledge management is a continuous process to understand the organization’s knowledge needs, the location of the knowledge, and how to improve the knowledge
o    Risk Management: It is each Persons responsibility to ensure that MTNs investment is protected such that risk to MTN is minimal whenever staff leave due to natural attrition or when MTN needs to swop vendor systems and solutions for whatever reason
o    Mentoring:  Mentoring team members and share all knowledge that one has. Ensure that the team is “singing from the same song sheet” and that methods of working to meet KPAs are established and constantly refined by the team as a whole.

Project Delivery
•    Develop and drive the execution of agreed projects
•    Drive the implementation, tracking, monitoring and compliance of Projects
•    Contract management in line with Procurement Policies
•    Co-ordinate project reporting
•    Ensure effective implementation of the integrated project management model
•    Risk management

Business Analysis
    Perform Business Analysis in line with the methodology and guidelines
    Identify ways to fine tune policies, processes and systems in line with changing work practices
    Determine, document, and review requirements for projects within the scope of the value stream or impacting processes and systems
    Design, analyse and document workflow and make appropriate recommendations that will positively impact operational effectiveness
    Identify Business Improvement and Optimisation opportunities that will result in improvement of process performance
    Ensure that benchmarking is conducted with other companies and organizations within and outside the industry.
    Construct business cases for initiations proposed by the business. Research and consider best practice, local conditions, trends, as well as competitor activity
    Identify and implement innovative ways to use minimum resources to achieve maximum outputs

Supervisory / Leadership / Managerial Complexity
•    Manage direct reports and matrix reports
•    Provide guidelines (KPIs, strategies & recommendations) for staff, so that IS KPAs/KPIs are attainable.
•    Develop an inspired, motivated and competent group who work as a team in meeting Dept. KPIs.
•    Develop a succession plan for all key positions
•    In all matters and decisions to seek consensus with, and contributions from, as wide a group of stakeholders as possible
•    Create a context for personal growth for staff
•    Ensure that Customer and project issues are identified timeously, documented, resolved and communicated
•    Ensure that Customer satisfaction is monitored regularly and rectified if required
•    Work with Line Management to set and manage team goals and objectives and regularly and effectively communicate these to the team
•    Bi-Annual Reports of vendor performance must be provided to Line Management
•    Have regular meetings where projects, goals, objectives, performance, risks, issues and mitigation plans are presented and discussed. 
•    Track all Systems licensing making sure that MTN is not paying for licensing that is not used. 
•    Liaise Core Network and IP Planning so that they are aware of projects and new systems being deployed and log projects with them where required
•    Liaise with Payment Systems to keep them updated as to billing record formats and traffic cases and log projects with them where required
•    Work with Line Management to allocate projects to ones self
•    Ensure that the capture of Business Requirements and the Analysis thereof takes place and proper Functional Requirements Specifications are produced for all projects. 
•    Ensure that all Projects go through a proper Inception, Elaboration ,Construction Phase, Transition – Validation, Transition – Deployment & Project Close-Out Project life-cycle:
•    Ensure that each VAS System has up to date documentation that is an accurate and true reflection of the System
•    Ensure that Policies and Procedures are maintained
•    Liaise with Marketing, supplying input as to systems capabilities (both current and future) as related to the Business VAS & Data Product Roadmap and maintain a 6-36 month Roadmap in line with budgetary prioritisation. Also impart as much knowledge to the Business as time allows
•    Work closely with Line Management to drive overall System strategy making sure it is in-line with Business Roadmaps
•    Work with Line Management to ensure that the VAS area maintains an up to date presentation that covers System Descriptions, High Level Topologies and current statistics regarding the meeting of KPI targets
•    Work with Line Management to supply all figures for development of budgets each year. They must also carefully track all spending
•    Engineers, from time to time, need mentoring which should be given when required. Hoarding of knowledge must be prevented at all costs
•    Maintain morale within the teams and help Line Management improve attitude towards better service delivery
•    Monitor vendor performance and hold regular meetings to go through all issues. Healthy vendor relationships must be maintained at all times. Negotiate and conclude Domain related contractual agreements with vendors.
•    Hold technical workshops with the team for critical projects where the role of VAS Architect is assumed and in this process mentor Engineers as much as possible which includes imparting as much knowledge as time allows.
•    Provide MTN Group with subject matter expertise as long as it does not affect the delivery of MTN SA Projects as decided by Line Management from time to time
•    Feed into Line Management making recommendations on training and development for team members including identification and recommendations of courses
•    Work with Line Management to ensure that team members adheres to the principles of the Companies values at all times

Role Complexity: 
This role constantly requires the incumbent to perform duties that are outside the “traditional” Technical role. Additional complexity is required from this role that is not usually inherent in such a position. MTN regards a background in programming, system Architecture, Unix/Linux OS systems administration, storage administration, database administration key to becoming effective VAS planning

Lateral Dimensions: These indicate the areas where the individuals could contribute uniquely in addition to the indicated duties, as well as how they could be affected by others or circumstances not necessarily under their control.                                                                             
Creativities (improvement/innovation inherent)
All members of Service Delivery are required to take initiative, and implement an ideas or processes that will improve the MTN Business. Having unlimited access to technologies in MTN, any team member can grow (and is required to grow) their technical experience, limited by only their knowledge saturation levels.
The Manager is empowered to drive and implement new ideas and philosophies with Line Management

Vulnerabilities (control span)
While direct input is obtained form various Business Units, change is constant which requires resilience from all members of the Service Delivery Team so as not to allow this to adversely affect one’s desire to exceed the norms. One will constantly be faced with situations that are outside any comfort zones. All team members are required to adapt to a constantly changing technological environment. Complacency with ones knowledge will seriously hinder growth
A Manager has to initiate and lead change if dictated by changing Business requirements. One must be willing to put in the extra hours from time to time in order to get projects done.

Collaboration:  Refers to formal and informal relationships
Responsibility towards
•    Line Management: Senior Manager – Service Delivery – VAS & GM Service Delivery
•    Direct Reports: VAS team members reporting directly in
•    Matrix Reports: Any Manager may give any reasonable request to a Technical Specialist or Senior Technical Specialist for something to be actioned
•    Key Customers: All areas of MTNs business impact the VAS team in some way
•    Key Suppliers: The team deals with many system vendors which is constantly expanding

Discretionary Space: The degree to which individuals are allowed to exercise independent thought and judgment.
Independent thought and Judgment
•    Freedom to make decisions effecting architecture and operations.
•    There is a policy of trust to take informed decisions
•    This freedom and trust that is placed with the individual must not be abused.

Authorities
•    Submitting financial process documents for procurement
•    Creating tender documentation, evaluating responses as part of a team and final submission of proposals to the Tender committee. 
•    Managing implementation of new systems.
•    Acceptance testing signoff on Vendor work
•    Analysis of capacity trends and impacts on service thereby planning for future requirements.
•    Perform appraisal of team members
•    Any decisions committing MTN to money must be discussed with Line Management

Minimum Requirements: 
Education
3 year BSc degree Engineering or Computer Science

Industry Experience
At least 3 years experience in the IT/Telecoms industry and specifically the application of Information Technology within the telco space of which at least 5 years should be applicable experience at an internationally recognized operator. The Manager must be widely read and know about many facets of Telecoms including open-source projects and I.T. technologies in general. In addition to this the Team Lead must demonstrate a high level of Leadership qualities and be high proficient in Project and Knowledge Management
Minimum of 5 years’ experience in a area of specialisation; with experience in supervising/managing others
Experience working in a medium to large organization

Training
•    GSM training is mandatory as well as some training on SS7 and SIGTRAN. 
•    Some training on Oracle, SUN Solaris and Linux is also required
•    Training on any scripting language is a must. 
•    Training on various VAS systems is Mandatory is a must
•    Any Project Management and Leadership training is highly desirable

Competencies
Head – Big Picture Focus (20)
•    Conceptual Thinker – Executes tactical plans to achieve strategic requirements
•    Problem Solver – Has the mental agility to identify and solve relevant business challenges
•    Improvement Driver – Executes and identifies opportunities for commercial innovation and continuous improvement

Heart – Emotionally Intelligent (30)
•    Culture and Change Champion –  Role models ethical practices by living the MTN values and vital behaviours for others to follow
•    Supportive People Manager –  Is self-aware and supports team capability development through opportunity creation for realising potential
•    Relationship Manager  –  Builds professional networks across teams through collaboration and co-operation

Hands – Results Focused (40)
•    Results Achiever –  Produces sustainable business results through ethical practices

Operationally Astute – Sets priorities, plans, organizes and co-ordinates the work of others
Knowledge
A high degree of knowledge in as many of the following areas is required
•    ACD and surrounding Contact Centre Technologies
•    Telecoms Technologies – Core TDM based SS7 incl SIGTRAN, Mobile Device Management, GPRS packet Core, IMS, IN and NGN
•    VAS Technologies – SMS, MMS, USSD, IVR, Voicemail, WIG, SIMS, Ringback Tones, Streaming, WAP, IM, LBS, SDP and IMS etc
•    Telco and IT protocols such as: SS7, POP & SMTP, FTP, SNMP, LDAP,    HTTP,    XML/RPC, SSL,    SIP, H.323, SGCP, MGCP, RTP, Voice & Video codes (G7.X etc), IMAP, SOAP, WML,    MM7, SMPP, XML,  XHTML etc
•    System Architecture & Design Skills including: Activity Diagrams, Business Requirements Gathering and Feedback, Capacity Upgrade Planning, Deployment  & Testing Planning, Flowcharting, Interaction Diagramming (Sequence), State Machine Diagramming, System Topology Diagrams and Data flow diagramming, Systems Requirement Specifications, Use Case Diagramming
•    Development / Scripting languages: C/C++, VBA, Erlang, Java, Perl, PHP
•    Unix and Linux Operating Systems
•    HP and SUN Hardware including Storage
•    Oracle and MySQL RDBMS

Skills/Physical Competencies
•    Costing skills, process modelling, technical documentation skills
•    Analytical and problem solving skills.
•    Project planning skills.
•    Communication and interpersonal skills.
•    Facilitation and Multitasking skills.
•    Contract administration skills.
•    Conflict and Stress resolution skills.
•    Leadership skills.
•    Customer centricity.
•    Understanding of the Telco business areas e.g. customer services, billing, finance, warehousing and marketing.
•    Ability to document and present strategy focused solutions that will add value to customers businesses
•    Presentation and writing skill

Behavioural qualities
•    Display integrity and simplicity of values
•    Be innovative
•    Resourceful
•    Be a strong team player
•    Ability to work closely with other team leaders, project leaders, project managers and managers
•    Self-motivated
•    Ability to work under pressure
•    Flexible thought application
•    Accurate and timeous reporting
•    Initiative
•    Perseverance
•    Ability to adapt to changing requirements of Business, customers and staff members