Nikita Jacobs
Configuration Management Analyst
Cape Town,WC
Summary
Dynamic Configuration Management Analyst dedicated to optimizing and maintaining IT service management processes, with a robust background in IT operations and service delivery. Recognized for a self-motivated and innovative approach, consistently seeking opportunities to enhance services and systems while thriving under pressure. Expertise in process optimization, system integrity, and compliance ensures the delivery of reliable results through collaborative teamwork and independent contributions. A complex problem solver with a strong analytical mindset, committed to achieving demanding development objectives while maintaining impeccable quality within strict deadlines.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
2
2
Languages
Work History
Configuration Management Analyst (Service Now)
Old Mutual
01.2023 - 05.2025
- The Configuration Management analyst is an experienced resource which performs the day-to-day delivery of Configuration Management services on the ServiceNow Configuration Management Database with minimal direction focusing work on prioritized tasks within Service Engineering - IT Capability Cluster.
- Performs operational activities as defined by the IT Configuration Management plan including CMDB Health- maintenance which included but is not limited to Data Completeness, Compliance and Staleness.
- Performs operational activities as defined by the IT Configuration Management policies and procedures
- Work to fulfil Configuration Management Service Requests as assigned
- Engages with strategic projects to ensure Configuration Management can deliver required functionality within project timeframes
- Mentors the organization on Configuration Management services, concepts, policies and procedures
- Oversees the design, coding and testing of changes as needed
- Collects and reports metrics as required to determine CMDB Health
- Identifies and reports non-compliance situations and take appropriate actions
- Performs Configuration Management audits as directed by the Configuration Management standards and controls.
- Identifies Service Improvement opportunities
- Mentors and helps direct junior Configuration Management Specialists
- Skills
- Basic knowledge on infrastructure operations, and IT asset lifecycle, including Business application lifecycle management.
- Basic knowledge of the ServiceNow Common Service Data Model (CSDM) 3.0 is an advantage.
- Demonstrate understanding of ITIL practices/skills.
- Competencies
- Collaboration (Relating)
- Customer First
- Execution
- Analytical and problem solving
- Critical thinking
- Innovation (Perspective)
- Leading with Influence
- Personal Mastery (Learning)
Service Delivery Manager / IT Service Manager
Old Mutual
01.2022 - 01.2023
- In this role, my focus was on development, implementation and leading an integrated service management capability (people, process and systems) across Old Mutuals Digital channels (WhatsApp, USSD, Web and Mobile Apps). I was driving resilience (risk management, contingency and continuity planning), service mapping and dependencies of configuration data, the facilitation or war rooms as well as communications and process improvements for both SA and Rest of Africa.
- Managed and applied the organisations risk and governance frameworks, while driving the D100R remediation programme, addressing single points of failure, known risks and modernization across the estate. An achievement of a compliant 3.09 score was obtained for 2022, above the 2.9 set target.
- Operational support provided to delivery teams and downstream system, regarding implementation of new or enhancements of services/features, removing project blockers, ensuring stability and meeting customers’ expectations.
- Actively leading service delivery optimisation and automation across the estate, by continuously improving and evolving technologies, processes, and practices with visible and tangible business impacts (CMDB Management, ITSM Tool – Service Now and Processes)
- Configuration management within the ITSM Tool, by accurately verifying and updating information and mapping dependencies of services based on business capabilities (service offerings, applications, and technical services), ensuring efficient troubleshooting for quicker resolution.
- Continuously improving service improvement processes, by identifying gaps and opportunities, while facilitating and coordinating remedial activities with relevant support teams, business, and other IT Stakeholders.
- Translating and automating Service Level agreements and Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) requirements within monitoring tools and dashboards, to create visibility and provide IT and business reports, to communicate IT performance data.
- Overseeing service performance and delivery across the IT estate, while leveraging real-time monitoring tools (Grafana, Kibana), and monitoring health- checks, ensuring stability in production before business opens hours.
IT Support Specialist – Digital and Data Engineering
Old Mutual
01.2020 - 01.2022
- As an IT Support Specialist, I applied my extensive knowledge of ITIL Practices and SRE principles, while working on SDLC processes for Operational Readiness, Incident, Change, Problem and Request management, Observability (monitoring), process modelling and on-boarding of delivery teams across South Africa and the Rest of Africa.
- Delivered a detailed resilience summary of the Digital and Data Environment, by defining and analysing systems, platforms, and applications to mitigate risk, contingency and continuity planning, to move towards service and platform reliability.
- Created onboarding and IT process documentation, as well as facilitating training of the ITSM Tools (Service Now and Cherwell) for all new joiners and delivery teams
- Managed and maintained Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs), Service Level Agreements, by delivering efficient and robust technical support, focusing on system enhancements and effective troubleshooting to the technical teams whilst ensuring IT practices are adhered to and risk of issues reduced.
- Creating knowledge articles, support models and standardised operating procedure (SOP) documentation for all new/existing services, ensuring efficient internal and external troubleshooting by following defined processes, clear escalation paths and understanding of the systems, platforms, and services Compiling and generating of monthly, weekly, and ad hoc IT Reports by extracting data from the service tools, to distribute to the IT leadership and business stakeholders, as per the defined reporting requirements
- Assisted technical and delivery teams with Operational readiness and overseeing the Service Design Life cycle, ensuring successful implementation and readiness of products and services across the Digital estate.
- Defined the minimum operational requirements for monitoring ensuring pro-active monitoring of the production environment and setting up real-time dashboards, enabling the delivery teams to manage IPC and track SLAs via the ITSM Tools
IT Support Specialist – OML IT Configuration
Old Mutual
01.2015 - 01.2020
- Responsible for the development, improvement and maintenance of the Configuration Management processes, standards and procedures.
- As my process is an enabler to the IPRCK process, I engage with all stakeholders at various levels to ensure the business requirements are met or exceeded.
- I provide technical advice and consultation to the business and provide suggestions when I see better ways of working. When a new business requirement is pitched, I proactively check our current objects to see if any new system developments would be required or if our existing objects can be amended to cater for the new requirements.
- As I have had the opportunity to be exposed in all the disciplines of the IPRCK process, I am able to advise and guide stakeholders when and where I see fit.
- I setup the Service Owner template for changes to their business objects. This involves developing SSIS packages for data extraction, transformation, and loading these items to our SQL database in preparation for an import to Cherwell which is setup via SQL scheduling to Cherwell’s scheduler.
- I need to ensure that there is no timing discrepancy between jobs and if so, I need to fix and resolve as soon as they arise. If any data source imports/exports fail, I communicate to all stakeholders, investigate the reason for failure and manually run the jobs where I’m able to and resolve as soon as possible.
- I setup and process the ‘Teams monthly reporting and continuously improve the way in which it is processed, and the information provided. I review our data monthly to pick up on any new trending and incorporate this into our report.
- I create and update Service owner dashboards and regularly review the dashboards to ensure the information displayed is current and valuable.
- I need to ensure that the end-to-end process is published smoothly and if any Configuration development/changes is required, I need to implement and maintain.
- I implemented a dashboard for our team that includes our main objects, such as Computers, Server and all processes which has automatic updates to the CMDB- This displays where updates have failed or passed. This is a mechanism to proactively investigate and fix issues as soon as it appears in the system.
Administrator
Old Mutual
01.2014 - 01.2015
Education
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
Regenesys School of Technology
Johannesburg, South Africa 04.2001 -
Business Communication Skills
Wits Digital Campus
Johannesburg, South Africa12-2024
Harness Chaos Engineering Practitioner -
Harness University
05-2023
PeopleCert DevOps Fundamentals Certification -
TorqueIT
04-2023
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Fundamentals -
APMG International Xebia
09-2022
Agile Bootcamp -
KAIZANIA
08-2020
Microsoft certificate of achievement - Implementing a SQL DataWarehouse
TorqueIT
03-2018
ITIL Operational Support & Analysis -
APMG International
06-2015
ITIL Release Control & Validation -
APMG International
11-2015
ITIL Foundation V3 -
APMG International
05-2014
Human Resources Management N6 Certificate -
Northlink College
06-2013
BA Arts Foundation Programme -
University of Western Cape Course
12-2011
Basic Mandarin: Certificate Basic Mandarin 2 -
Liaoning University
08-2010
Skills
DevOps Practices
References
Jacqui, Wilson, Senior IT Manager, Old Mutual, (please note due to POPI References contact details upon request)
Interests
FAMILY, CAMPING, BEACH, OUTDOORS, TRAVELING, LEARNING NEW THINGS
Timeline
Configuration Management Analyst (Service Now)
Old Mutual
01.2023 - 05.2025
Service Delivery Manager / IT Service Manager
Old Mutual
01.2022 - 01.2023
IT Support Specialist – Digital and Data Engineering
Old Mutual
01.2020 - 01.2022
IT Support Specialist – OML IT Configuration
Old Mutual
01.2015 - 01.2020
Administrator
Old Mutual
01.2014 - 01.2015
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
Regenesys School of Technology
04.2001 -
Business Communication Skills
Wits Digital Campus
Harness Chaos Engineering Practitioner -
Harness University
PeopleCert DevOps Fundamentals Certification -
TorqueIT
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Fundamentals -
APMG International Xebia
Agile Bootcamp -
KAIZANIA
Microsoft certificate of achievement - Implementing a SQL DataWarehouse
TorqueIT
ITIL Operational Support & Analysis -
APMG International
ITIL Release Control & Validation -
APMG International
ITIL Foundation V3 -
APMG International
Human Resources Management N6 Certificate -
Northlink College
BA Arts Foundation Programme -
University of Western Cape Course
Basic Mandarin: Certificate Basic Mandarin 2 -
Liaoning University