Mark Harris Email & Phone Number

Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

South Africa

As a Senior Digital Product Manager, my main responsibility is to oversee the management of products throughout their lifecycle, in line with the overall product strategy and roadmap. This involves working with cross-functional teams, including UX and Development, to ensure the optimization of the existing product portfolio based on changing customer and business needs.Some of my key responsibilities are:Best Practices and Continuous Improvement:• Develop and lead comprehensive delivery plans to implement and sustain the product management service strategy effectively.Stakeholder Management:• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to establish mutual agreement on product strategies, evidence-based analyses, and feedback for enhancements.• Communicate effectively with stakeholders, highlighting the implications of product challenges and risks on the business, and provide viable solutions for resolution or mitigation.Planning and Analysis:• Create and implement a comprehensive product roadmap that aligns with the overall product strategy.• Conduct market and competitor analyses to guide product positioning and variations for different customer and user segments.• Evaluate product costs and forecast revenue potential to determine product feasibility and viability.• Work with creative teams to develop product prototypes and gather customer and stakeholder feedback to ensure effective addressing of requirements.• Monitor product demand and backlog items, and present compelling business cases to software development teams and stakeholders to meet customer needs and realize financial benefits.• Collaborate with customers and internal stakeholders to translate feature-level product requirements into detailed business specifications.• Develop and execute go-to-market strategies to optimize product relevance and drive revenue growth.• Analyze and report on product metrics to ensure product health and return on investment (ROI).

South Africa

As Senior Project Manager to the business, I was invited to join Barrows' 'Connected Store' business in a leadership role, with a primary focus on establishing and nurturing a Support team. At the time, overseeing the management of 4500 'connected' assets within the retail environment, my responsibilities as the support lead extend to taking full ownership of the dynamic 'live' environment. Furthermore, I was entrusted with the implementation of robust processes to enhance asset lifecycle management, as well as the effective monitoring and management of SIM and Data activities.Responsibilities included:• Develop and implement best practices across both asset and data management.• Manage both the product and teams in trade as effectively as possible while adhering to agreed SLA’s.• Guide and support the teams to ensure all assets are optimized and costs are tracked and communicated. • Deliver the required reports to the relevant stakeholders regarding the product costs and lifecycle.• Support the development team to better understand the live product environment and support in the development of features that will drive client retention and growth.

Durban Area, South Africa

As Product Owner for our production development team, my mandate was to define and develop new business system processes. Whist collaborating with key stakeholders I was responsible for identifying future ways of working and understanding how Barrows integrate these changes into our back-end system. A key focus of the role was to engage with the various departments, defining their current internal challenges, to gain a shared understanding of their requirements and work to deliver an effective system solution. The role has introduced me to agile practices and working as part of the Scrum team, a new area of development, which has required me to learn a new discipline and way of working.Responsibilities included:• Defining the Product Vision, outlining its purpose, goals, and target audience• Collaborating with stakeholders, end-users, and the development team to gather and define the product requirements then prioritize these requirements based on the business value and impact.• Creating and managing the product backlog• Continuously evaluating the product's performance, customer satisfaction, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Using this data to inform future development efforts and make data-driven decisions for the product's improvement.

South Africa

Upon returning to South Africa after three years abroad, I transitioned back into the local business as the Senior Project Manager. With Barrows undertaking the separation of its core divisions, aiming to establish them as independent business operations, I was tasked with the responsibility of integrating business systems, processes, and workflows to guarantee uninterrupted operations across the new entities. Collaborating closely with numerous business stakeholders, I spearheaded efforts to ensure the effective management and alignment of all essential business activities with the project roadmap, taking into account both the strategic and operational aspects of the tasks at hand.Responsibilities included:• Lead the team, bringing a broad service understanding of the focus areas needing to be delivered and ensuring proactive methodical delivery.• Lead, train and grow system and infrastructure teams to solve core business problems keeping our foundational services reliable and scalable.• Take an active role in prioritizing the roadmap for the organization.• Drive cross-team and cross-org alignment in infrastructure.• Partner with Senior Leadership members to achieve reliability outcomes for their services.• Proactively find, define, communicate, and report process improvements.• Take the initiative to reach across team boundaries to achieve both strategic and operational objectives.

Rotterdam Area, Netherlands

Based remotely in Rotterdam, Netherlands, I joined the strategic partnership between Barrows & TMS as the Senior Global Project Manager, supporting their offices in EEMA, Europe, APAC and North America.My role focused on the development and execution of processes across the global team, understanding how we would integrate and execute the ways of workings and support our local offices.I was successful in directing globally dispersed Sales, Design, Engineering and Operational functions. Playing a key role in sourcing, on boarding and managing the performance of international suppliers, agencies, execution teams and logistics service providers.

Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

As the Project Management Team Lead, my role focused on the responsibilities of the day-to-day activities of the various project management teams. To lead, mentor and develop a group of Project Co-Ordinator’s and Project Managers in best practice approaches. Oversee end-to-end implementation of both external client and internal business projects.Team Management• Ensure that the workload within the team is distributed fairly and in line with the team’s priorities to deliver on departmental OKR’s.• Keep abreast of talent pool to contribute to the recruitment of top talent.• Drive succession, training, and development within the team to ensure resource capability and business continuity.• Maintain a healthy and culturally aligned team.Project Management• Oversee and own projects in line with the established guidelines. From project inception to completion, ensuring project delivery within allocated timing and budget. This includes the management of resources and team to achieve the project deliverable.• Scoping project and managing stakeholders within the processStrategy Development and Management• Build and develop the long-term strategy for the Project Management department, ensuring overall alignment to the business strategy• Develop and maintain the Project Management roadmap.

Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

As the Project Manager for the Barrows International operations, I was tasked with the facilitation of all post sale activities through our South African business and ensure delivery of the projects as set out by the various business mandates.Day-to-day operation within this role, where aligned to local activities and responsibilities, the only significant adjustment being the clientele and knowledge of international business practices.

Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

In my role as Project Manager, I was tasked with the ownership of both sales, operational and business projects. Ensuring the delivery thereof through various Project methodologies and frameworks.Responsibilities included:• Assess project intricacy and extent to facilitate effective project approval and prioritization.• Establish and uphold internal and external stakeholder registry and communication strategy to ensure that all project stakeholders are informed on project details.• Coordinate all project interactions to ensure that relevant stakeholders are informed and in agreement regarding project information.• Establish and manage project governance and management templates to ensure alignment among project stakeholders and the availability of project management data.• Formulate and convey a project timeline with interdependencies, tasks, and milestones to establish clarity regarding roles, responsibilities, and project timelines.• Identify, document, and communicate all project risks, issues, and dependencies, and ensure that appropriate measures are identified and incorporated into project planning and governance documentation to minimize their impact on project delivery.• Inform relevant stakeholders about changes to project timelines and schedules that affect project delivery in order to manage expectations.• Manage project change requests and modify project plans and governance documents accordingly to ensure that the impact of changes is understood, communicated, and agreed upon by stakeholders.• Execute project closure tasks and facilitate knowledge-sharing sessions to identify and recommend opportunities for project management improvement.

Durban Area, South Africa

As Project Co-Ordinator my role focused on the facilitation of project management activities, ensuring relevant stakeholders were informed and aligned on project progress, risks, and impact. In my role, I was responsible for upholding project governance, ensuring coherence among internal project stakeholders and ensuring the accessibility of project data.Responsibilities included:• Facilitated project engagements to ensure effective communication and alignment among internal stakeholders.• Developed and conveyed project schedules with tasks, dependencies, and milestones to clarify roles, responsibilities, and timelines.• Identified, documented, and communicated project risks, issues, and dependencies, working with project managers to determine appropriate actions for mitigation.• Informed relevant stakeholders about changes in project timelines and schedules that could impact project delivery, managing expectations accordingly.• Tracked task completion, managed risks, and issues, and provided project status updates to stakeholders for effective project monitoring and control.• Managed project change requests, adjusting project plans and governance documents while ensuring stakeholder understanding and agreement.• Monitored work activities and escalated risks that could affect delivery timelines and quality.• Assisted project managers by setting up project governance repositories, scheduling stakeholder engagements, documenting meeting outcomes, and following up on actions.• Liaised with project team members to ensure completion of activities and reported risks to the project manager.• Generate project management reports.• Reported issues and risks encountered while adhering to project management practices, contributing to continuous improvement efforts.