Program Technology at Scale Lead

Background:

We aim to make our programs a model for the highest global standards and to cultivate power and lasting change not just for our clients but for all people affected by humanitarian crises. To achieve that vision, the IRC's Technical Excellence (TE) group, located within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department, provides technical assistance to IRC's country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice.

IRC's Technical Excellence team is comprised of four sector teams or "Units" which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.

IRC's Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:

1. Program Design: We support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, together with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and our clients bring to the table.
2. Quality Assurance: We partner with our measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes. We partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.
3. Business Development: We partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; we deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.
4. Research & Learning: We partner with our research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that we continuously improve our future design and delivery.
5. External Influence: We showcase the IRC's programs, technical insights and learning to influence and improve the humanitarian sector's policy and practice.

Job Overview:

IRC's Strategy 100 sets ambitious goals for IRC to improve the scale and quality of our programs. To deliver on this mandate, IRC has developed the Technology 100 strategic plan, which sets out how technology will be used to achieve these aims. A key recommendation of this plan is the establishment of an expanded Technology for Programs (ICT4P) function to both ensure complementarity between existing efforts in this area, and to identify highest priority areas for expansion.

TheProgram Technology at Scale Lead will be the department leader in 2 main areas: (1) CRRD Data Governance and (2) Program Technology at Scale, referring to staff-facing technology used to manage/administer/deliver programs.

The Data Governance focus will include:

1. Coordinating the definition of key data required for CRRD management decision-making
2. Leading Product Management of the Program Indicator Dashboard and other CRRD enterprise data systems
3. Collaborating with IT, Finance, AMU to ensure other data systems reflect CRRD data needs
4. In partnership with the Data Team, leading on data integration and reporting facing CRRD audiences

The Program Technology at Scale focus will include:

1. Working closely with the Program Technology Innovations Lead, IT, and Technical Units to make the decision to scale program technologies, including how to finance support and license costs
2. Collaborating with Technical Units and Regional teams on policies, templates, configurations or further development of the product required to deploy across multiple contexts, consistent with IRC's technical/programmatic standards
3. Collaborating with IT and Technical Units to develop support models for products at scale
4. In partnership with the relevant business unit leaders, coordinating the deployment of scaled program technology

Major Responsibilities

Strategy

• Lead on identifying CRRD management's data needs and develop strategies to address those needs
• Work closely with the Program Technologies Innovation Lead to scale-up products that have performed well in pilots
• Collaborate with Technical Unit leaders to ensure strong Technical leadership of scaled program technology
• Collaborate with IT to identify opportunities to centralize the management of program technology to drive efficiencies, and reduce costs

Implementation

• Manage the Program Indicator Dashboard and other products in this role's portfolio to further an overall CRRD Data strategy
• Lead the curation of key Programs-related data definitions, in collboration with the Global MEAL Lead and other CRRD stakeholders
• Collaborate with teams in Finance, AMU and IT to institutionalize key Programs-related data definitions in systems managed by those teams
• Collaborate with the Data Team, Finance and AMU to integrate data from IRC's systems of record in IRC Data Lakehouse
• Lead the development of new reporting facing CRRD managers integrating grants, programs and finance data
• Organize Technical leaders of scaled program technology plan deployments in coordination with Regional teams
• Coordinate with IT on procurement and vendor management for scaled program technology
• Coordinate with with Technical Leaders and IT IT on the support model for each scaled product in Lead or collaborate on drafting policies to ensure responsible and efficient use of enterprise program technologies
• Coordinate with the MEAL Global Practice Lead on integrating standardized data definitions and data collection/capture methods into program technologies
• In partnership with the Program Technology Innovations Lead, identify and explore opportunities for capacity strengthening to better leverage technology in programs

Team management

• Lead and manage multiple teams responsible for supporting CRRD's program technologies and data at scale
• Foster an environment where new concepts, methods and approaches are developed and put into action as needed. Ensure team members feel supported and recognized for their work and that effective performance management is followed

Influence, Relationships and Representation

• Partner with the Program Technologies Innovation Lead to ensure effective translation of innovation to practice at scale. The Innovations Lead will test and establish "gold standard" for new innovations and then hand off to this role, who will guide leaders in the Technical Units and IT on the decision to scale and resource planning to support that decision.
• Act as a key strategic advisor to IT and Program Delivery teams on priority program technologies for adoption
• Partner effectively with individual departments who are responsible for their own Data Reporting and Quality. Collaborate with those teams on Data Analytics and Metadata.
• Represent IRC in external fora as relevant

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: Senior Director, Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning and Senior Director, Enterprise Applications
• Direct Reports: Technology Development Team, Product Management Team

Key Internal Relationships:

• Program Technology Innovations Lead
• IT Extended Leadership Team
• Data Architecture
• Regional MEAL Advisors and Regional Practice Leads across 6 regions
• Business focal points across CRRD functions and enterprise systems owners across IRC

Desired Experience and Skills

• 10+ years experience managing and/or coordinating effectively across complex, global teams
• 5+ years experience in operationalizing Data Governance, Data Stewardship and Data Quality
• Experience in defining business requirements for information management projects
• Expertise in creating and deploying best practices and methodologies for product management
• Familiarity with business and IT architecture
• Familiarity with Enterprise Metadata Management (business and IT)
• Familiarity with software development lifecycles; process modeling, semantic modeling and data modeling
• Ability to speak to technical-level staff and develop written reporting and presentational content with level-appropriate messaging up to and including the senior executive level
• Ability to develop positive relationships across complex organizations.
• Self-motivated and a problem solver who can assess and develop strategies for achieving the needs of the user community
• Fluency in English required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish also an advantage
• Ability to travel globally up to 20% of the time

Compensation: Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

Equal Opportunity Employer: IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

US Benefits: We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days depending on role and tenure, medical insurance starting at $143 per month, dental starting at $6.50 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with immediately vested matching, disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

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