ICT Advisor - Product Strategy and Customer Success Lead
Remote | Home Based - May require travel
- Organization: UNOPS - United Nations Office for Project Services
- Location: Remote | Home Based - May require travel
- Grade: Mid level - IICA-3, International Individual Contractors Agreement
-
Occupational Groups:
- Operations and Administrations
- Information Technology and Computer Science
- Managerial positions
- Sales and Marketing
- Customer services
- Closing Date: Closed
Functional Responsibilities
Summary of functions:
-
Guides the establishment of robust team practices for gathering and internalizing user needs in social and humanitarian action
-
Develops product vision and development pipeline
-
Oversees end-to-end DISHA user journey and ensures customer success
-
Structures the collaboration with pro-bono partners in service of product delivery and UN capacity building
-
Develops robust and practical processes for managing risks arising from using data and AI-enabled products in humanitarian contexts
-
Develops sustainable long-term product vision and value proposition for DISHA and contributes to addressing other strategic questions as appropriate
- Guides the establishment of team practices for robust gathering and of user needs in social and humanitarian action
-
Guides the DISHA team in coordinating research with key user groups to understand and capture the evolving user needs for the strategic focus within the area of data insights for social and humanitarian action
-
Guides the DISHA team in establishing regular dialogue with key user groups to test the success or failure of meeting prioritized needs during the development of products through user testing, qualitative and quantitative monitoring following continuous delivery principles.
-
Leads the drawing together of user needs in a cohesive, evolving, sustainable and implementable product designs in collaboration with the other DISHA Leads and with support of pro bono partners.
-
Guides the DISHA team in developing product vision, objectives, user benefits.
-
Advises the DISHA team on the creation and execution of the software development pipeline in alignment with the product vision.
-
Works with Tech Lead and Engineers to break down work into implementable pieces.
-
Guides the regular prioritization of pieces of work in collaboration with Tech Lead(s) to ensure delivery of the most desirable, viable and feasible technology as fast as possible for users' needs, i.e. following a lean /agile approach. Including bringing user testing feedback into the loop of developing the software and AI.
-
Advises the development of product testing protocols and practices.
-
Supervises the delivery of an excellent end-to-end user experience with the DISHA product from expression of interest, to application, vetting process, onboarding, monitoring ongoing use experience and engagement, to reporting and resolution of user issues.
-
Brings customer focus into every decision, product and technical choice DISHA team makes.
-
Develops an in-depth understanding of customers' goals and challenges and ensures DISHA's products and conceived, shaped, and delivered in support of those.
-
Advises the Head of DISHA in initial engagement and set up of partnership working with pro bono partners from the technology industry and academia.
-
Advises the development and design of the respective roles and responsibilities of the partners/stakeholders for effective collaboration and project success.
-
Advises the Head of DISHA on the development of pro-bono partner engagement strategy that is sustainable and allows for a delivery of high-quality dependable products.
-
Builds capacity of UN Global Pulse colleagues in AI Product Management, user research, other modern technology practices to support the long-term and sustainable capacity of staff.
-
Develops methods to encourage pro bono technology partners to share their expertise and support capacity building.
5. Develops robust and practical processes for managing risks arising from using data and AI- enabled products in humanitarian contexts
-
Collaborates with DISHA Policy Lead and on designing and implementing a robust and practical process for managing human rights and legal risks associated with the use of data and AI-enabled products in high sensitivity contexts
-
Collaborates with DISHA Policy Lead on gathering appropriate stakeholder feedback on the risk management process
-
Advises the implementation of the risk management process to ensure follow-through by in-house and pro-bono development teams
-
Guides the development of adequate risk mitigation practices to ensure DISHA products are safe to use in a humanitarian context, and their limitations are well understood by the users
6. Develops sustainable long-term product vision and value proposition for DISHA and contributes to addressing other strategic questions as appropriate
-
Develops long-term product vision and user value proposition for the DISHA project
-
Contributes to the development of the pathway towards a sustainable operating and funding model for the DISHA project, including models for long-term service maintenance, support, and scale.
-
Advises the development of ongoing practices for impact measurement and reporting.
Impact of Results:
The effective and successful achievement of DISHA objectives could accelerate the ability of social and humanitarian actors to utilize the benefits of AI and big data at a faster pace in these unprecedented times of fragility and uncertainty of climate-fuelled natural disasters and intense conflicts.
Education/Experience/Language requirements
- An advanced University Degree (Master’s or equivalent) or higher degree is required, preferably in computer science, social sciences, business management, economics, or other relevant disciplines.
- A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s or equivalent) in the above-mentioned fields with an additional two (2) years of relevant experience may be considered in lieu of an advanced degree.
- A minimum of 7 (seven) years experience in product management of software technology or similar role is required.
- Experience coordinating, gathering and analyzing user needs, user testing and feedback and synthesizing them into prioritized objectives and a coherent design in collaboration with engineers is required.
- An understanding from end-to-end of the software delivery cycle including at least one experience of deployment or go-live is required.
- Experience in designing, coding and deploying data-driven applications is preferred.
- Experience of successfully working as a part of distributed, international teams is desirable.
- Experience in satellite image analysis or remote sensing is an asset.
- Experience in data analysis, data science or AI is desirable.
- Experience of implementing innovation or technology in social or humanitarian sectors is desirable.
- Experience supporting software teams and management in adopting mindset shifts towards modern technology practice e.g. agile, continuous delivery, DevOps is desirable.
- Prior experience in coordinating international, multi-partner supported projects including stakeholder management is desirable.
- Full working knowledge of English is required;
- Knowledge of another official UNOPS language is an asset.
- Any internationally recognized Product Manager or Project Manager certification is desirable but not essential.