Product Owner

Listing reference: adapt_000290 Listing status: Online Apply by: 20 August 2026

Position summary

Industry: Education & Training Job category: IT and Telecommunications Location: Midrand Contract: Permanent EE position: Yes

About our company

Adapt IT (Pty) Ltd is a subsidiary of Adapt IT Holdings Proprietary Limited and a market leader in developing specialised vertical market software and digitally-led business solutions that assist clients across targeted industries to Achieve More by improving their customer experience, core business operations, business administration and enterprise resource planning.

Introduction

The Product Owner represent the customer by evaluating matching and prioritizing system enhancements, features and functionality that support the strategic direction of the system, are relevant and saleable and benefit end users. The Product Owners collaborates with clients, business development and other stakeholders to understand their requirements and goals. Other duties of the Product Owner include identifying product issues, determining the product roadmap, meeting operational and strategic goals and overseeing the development process. The Product Owner relies on the Delivery Manger and Lead Developers to ensure that only prioritized development items are planned, resources scheduled, and development executed ensuring that the team achieves their goals.

Job description

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE ROLE

Product development roadmap

• Responsible and accountable for the product’s success in the market.
• Responsible for roadmap with regards to products/systems within scope of control.
• Analyse user requirements (by liaising with clients and other stakeholders), market trends, and

competitors in order to maintain a “Strategic Product Roadmap” in collaboration with all stakeholders. (3

– 5-year vision of the Product).

• Identify a prioritized list of items/features to be built into the standard system. This list of items is reflected

in and is referred to as the Product Backlog; (12 - 18-month vision of the Product).

• Maintains the Product Backlog by keeping it up to date in terms of requirement and prioritization, and

ensures that the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to all. This should preferably be

maintained within the organization’s chosen tool;

• As above, prioritization of the product backlog should be done with consideration of operational objectives

which include:

o Strategic direction of the product;

o Revenue targets;

o Technical debt (design issues, technology changes);

o Projects; o Innovation.

o Ensure that the highest value items are worked on by the development team.

o Evaluate current offerings saleability with Business Development and advise on functionality to be

discontinued.

• Monitor and report on statutory compliance (such as taxation- and labour legislation, occupational safety

regulations) of systems within scope of control.

• Collaborate with other POs with regards to the integration between all systems.
• Ensure that strategic and operational goals are met maintaining the correct balance between annuity and

client funded work (LSD, Projects)

o Division Budget Targets

o SWT Enhancement development Evaluation and prioritization of system enhancements

• Evaluate requested / suggested system enhancements, features and functionality in terms of the strategic

direction of the system, saleability and benefit end users.

• Prioritize requested system enhancements, features and functionality into a prioritized product and sprint

backlog.

• Perform the role of Product Owner as defined by the official Scrum Guide (available here) within the Scrum

framework.

• Liaise and communicate with Adapt IT Education (e.g. Business Development, etc.) with regards to

requirements and prioritization on all cross-BU projects (significant customer development, product

development, etc.).

• Be available to answer questions from and provide any clarifications to the development team regarding

items on the product and/or sprint backlog. Implementations and software development projects

• Evaluation of VoR, BPM or Gap Analysis outcomes and advise on the high-level design of system set-ups,

business processes or software modifications to meet client business requirements.

• Participate in internal workshops to design solutions for functional requirements where required.
• Provide input to and verification of technical specifications, test plans, manual changes and quotations (for

client funded development).

• Assess the impact of implementing a design on the system as well as on Adapt IT Education Division

resources and put forward recommendations.

• Sign off on quotations for data updates and/or development for systems within scope of control.
• Approval of all functionality / bug fixes / technology conversions / ATOVs / data changes /etc. released /

deployed within a build for systems within scope of control (Builds).

• Approval of software distribution to customers test and/or production systems as per customer

agreements (Software Releases, i.e. crelease).

• Interface with multiple stakeholders internally and externally.

Verification and software documentation

• Sign-ff on reviewed documentation, release note, user manuals and training manuals as prepared by the

team.

Product support

• Sign-ff on reviewed documentation, release note, user manuals and training manuals as prepared by the

team.

Mentorship / Training

• Provide mentorship and guidance to internal staff on technical and system processes.
• Perform internal training for technical staff as required.
• Ability to mentor and assist others, and to lead internal training sessions
• Mentor resources on specialized knowledge.
• Maintain adequate knowledge of business practices that are addressed by systems within scope of control.
• Maintain adequate knowledge of the technical environment e.g.

o Tools and techniques used to document user requirements and prepare specifications;

o The infrastructure on which the Integrator System operates;

o The development methodology and tools used in Integrator.

• Maintain adequate knowledge of trends within the market with a focus on what competitor software

providers offer.

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge on legislative and statutory developments within all statutory bodies

related to the product within his / her responsibility. Business Development

• Fulfil role of the Adapt IT Education spokesperson at ITS User Group Conference and User Group

Workshops (SWT) with regards to product(s)/system(s) within scope of control.

• Assist with the completion of Requests for Information / Requests for Proposal responses for systems

within the scope of control.

• Identify opportunities to sell systems and services to existing clients.

Team Management

• Manage the day-to-day running of the development team.
• Perform interim and final performance appraisals of staff who are deployed within the team of which they

are a Product Owner.

• Responsibility for staff discipline and non-performance.

KEY COMPETENCIES

Communication Skills

• Sound interpersonal skills, creativity and ability to mix with other people
• Sound communication skills
• Have a high standard of written- and spoken English skills
• Ability to communicate with personnel from clients on all levels, including senior management, technical

resources and administrative operational staff.

• Excellent verbal ability, communication, negotiation and presentation skills
• Ability to create, compose and edit written materials and presentations
• Ability to pitch proposals
• Ability to convey complex information in understandable terms