[Hiring] Consultant Information Technology @World Food Programme

Role Description

The Beneficiary Management Products team is focused on delivering software solutions. It is based in Rome, but also consists of team members working remotely in Europe, and in Asia.

Within TEC products, SCOPE is WFP’s beneficiary and transfer management platform that supports WFP in providing digital assistance. The SCOPE platform is used for beneficiary and transfer management.

Reporting to the Lead Product Manager, the Product Manager is responsible to translate business goals into specific software requirements. The Product Manager holds the vision of the product or product component within the SCOPE ecosystem. Hereby referred to as the product. He/She is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Product Development Team. The Product Manager aims for an IT solution which achieves the highest quality in terms of technical usability, user acceptability, and domain suitability.

The Product Development team is based in Rome, but also consists of team members working remotely in Europe, and in Asia.

Accountabilities/Responsibilities

• Create and maintain the Product Roadmap outlining the evolution of the product;
• Prepare the Product Roadmap for endorsement by the TEC Demand Assessment Board (DAB) or Project Prioritisation Board (PPR) when requested;
• Perform the role of Scrum Product Owner:
  • Develop and explicitly communicate the Product Goal;
  • Gather and validate requirements preferably following a Human-Centred Design (HCD) approach;
  • Ensure that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood;
  • Communicate requirements inwards to the Product Development Team:
    • Decompose high-level requirements;
    • Create and clearly communicate Product Backlog Items (PBI), partnering closely with Stakeholders and the Product Development Team to ensure everyone understands the items in the backlog;
  • Communication outwards to Stakeholders:
    • Communicate estimates, dependencies and technical issues after grooming sessions, informing and negotiating with the Stakeholders;
    • Make decisions, in consultation with Stakeholders, regarding the priority of PBIs;
  • Decide when to deploy the product with the predisposition towards frequent releases;
  • Take care of Backlog Grooming: regularly review items on the backlog to ensure the backlog contains the appropriate items, that they are prioritized, and that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery;
  • Participate in the Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Product Demos and Retrospectives when needed.
• Remain up to date on SCOPE functionalities and assess technical feasibility;
• Perform functional testing and facilitate acceptance testing;
• Provide additional product demonstrations to stakeholders;
• Provide troubleshooting and validation of incidents on production as 2nd to 3rd line support;
• Maintain an up to date understanding of the business to comprehend the requirements for development changes;
• Manage the product budget (including support & maintenance costs), and prepare cost estimates based on the IT Solution Architect’s high-level effort estimates;
• Keep track of the consumption of purchased time-and-materials quotas;
• Verify vendor consumption reports and invoices;
• Approve consumption reports for the insertion of the corresponding Service Entry Sheets;
• In collaboration with the TEC’s Head of Sourcing, initiate the request for the creation of Purchase Orders;
• Other duties as required.

Deliverables at the End of the Contract

• Product Roadmap;
• Product Backlog well-structured in Epics, Features, and User Stories, with User Stories that pass the “Definition of Ready” as per the INVEST criteria;
• 3rd line support focusing on improved initial response times within the unit and greater satisfaction from customers and other units. Development of artefacts required to support the methodology;
• Where testing is requested, testing must be evident by producing test plans and expected and actual results;
• Test plans from the QA team must be reviewed and validated to ensure they meet all country office specific operational processes;
• Product fact sheets and manuals to be produced for new and existing functionality;
• As new functionality is written, accompanying release notes to be written;
• Project and release plans when requested.

Qualifications

• University degree in business administration, information technology, or other related fields;
• Minimum 3 years of post-graduate experience within Agile product management environments, including a proven track record of planning, leading and executing product deliveries;

Knowledge & Skills

• Familiarity with SCOPE or other similar platforms or business processes within the domain areas of digital assistance is a plus;
• Familiarity with banking systems, electronic money transfer systems, security protocols, industry standards, procurement of financial services and points/awards systems is a bonus;
• Being able to facilitate business units so that there is a common understanding and consensus when discussing projects and changes;
• Ability to run requirements workshops if requested and under the guidance of the Lead Product Manager;

Capabilities

• Ability to think creatively, strategically, and identify and resolve problems;
• Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills;
• Well organized and detail oriented;
• Able to effectively coordinate multiple responsibilities simultaneously;
• Able to articulate complex concepts in non-technical language;
• Able to plan and organize work and communicate effectively;
• Enthusiastically work with a diverse population of people of different national and cultural backgrounds, particularly valuing respectfulness and inclusively leveraging everyone's talents.

Languages

• Fluency in oral and written English with an intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is desirable.