Initiative Manager

Initiative Manager

Starting Salary: $58,000 - $68,000 (Depending on qualifications and experience)

The City of Mobile seeks an Initiative Manager for its newly created Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI). This office was formed from the sustained result of a Bloomberg Philanthropies grant-funded Innovation Team, carrying ties to the Bloomberg global network of pioneering "civic innovators".

OSI is a small, multi-disciplinary team charged with researching challenges, working with city staff to create solutions, implementing performance management, and driving human-centered innovation across all City departments. The team is committed to achieving a nimble local government that continuously aims to be as frictionless a platform as possible for all staff and citizens. We are an internal creative and strategic resource, appointed by and reporting directly to the Mayor and the Chief of Staff. Our measures of success pertain to city-service efficiency, impact on the community, and human experience. Past 'Innovation Team' work found at osi.cityofmobile.org serves as an example of capability, rather than expectation. Future team methods and outputs are fluid, and new hires will have the opportunity to weigh in on the shaping of our path forward.

Alongside the Director, Data Analyst, and Designer, the Initiative Manager will play a critical role in building and managing relationships with internal & external stakeholders, documenting / communicating projects, populating / managing the team’s web outlets, developing project management boards, and accomplishing peripheral tasks / filling gaps to keep the ball rolling in the right direction as well as on time.

The ideal candidate has interests in organizational / public policy, social theory, project management, and storytelling. They will be expected to develop relationships, trust, and influence with city staff by exhibiting approachability, good communication, and helpfulness. With a hands-on, patient, and practical approach, the Initiative Manager will work with people at their pace, capability, and vocabulary levels.

As the team operates with unified goals and a flat hierarchy, this role will regularly participate in all stages of the innovation process unless time or priority requires otherwise. They would participate in team activities such as information gathering, data synthesis, workshop facilitation, critical thinking, idea generation, data related storytelling, and implementation.

Interested candidates must submit a resume with references, a short (less than one-page) cover letter, and examples of past projects or related work products (link acceptable). Examples should demonstrate professional and/or conceptual project/thinking processes, written communication ability, and if available, any relevant quantitative or qualitative synthesis outputs.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities:

• Work with the team in utilizing research to inform innovations through a collaborative process
• Written aspects of various research-based presentations, documents, reports, and social media posts
• Verbally present research detailing processes, ecosystems, stakeholders, challenges, and solutions / recommendations to a range of internal and external audiences
• Identify, call upon, brief, and learn from external experts as needed, then report back to the team
• Confirm information and gather casual feedback from stakeholders about situations, ideas, direction, etc.
• Participate in qualitative research to gain insight into citizen motivations, needs, and experiences relating to internal processes and procedures (training available)
• Coordinate and schedule stakeholder meetings, workshops, interviews, site visits, etc.
• Build Project Management boards with strategic intent (training available)
• Identify new technologies to fill departmental need gaps
• Assist with the setup, delivery, management, and reporting on city-wide measurement surveys
• Assist in the facilitation of department and cross-departmental workshops mapping business processes and relating them to citizen research and city software capabilities
• Assist in the supporting of departments in service delivery software implementation and development
• Assist in the supporting of departments with internal collaborative cultural discovery, definition, and relation to actions throughout the organizational hierarchy. For example: vision, mission, goal, objective, measurement setting
• Provide feedback and perspective in all team efforts
• Any other task needed to fill gaps in team capacity

Minimum Qualifications (Mandatory):

• Bachelor’s Degree and/or relevant practical experience in sociology, phycology, design management, civic design, public administration, or business management. Example fields: instructional design, system design, civic design, education, creative entrepreneurship / start-up mentality, product / service line ownership, strategic consultation, etc. Example experience: Business Strategy Conceptualization & Implementation, Public-policy writing, Public Administration, Repeated application of processes that take a project of any kind from research to final product, etc.
• Two years or more of professional-level experience in a relevant field
• Demonstrated ability in managing projects
• Demonstrated ability in summarizing and explaining complex situations in both written and verbal form
• Demonstrated mentality and desire to learn from as many perspectives as possible for the sake of deeply understanding all factors and forces related to a challenge area
• Demonstrated documentation, synthesis, and summarization skills
• Strong interpersonal skills with an ability to build good relationships with teammates, city staff, and diverse community stakeholders.
• Ability to work both independently, and cooperatively within a team, leveraging other team member work and abilities
• Ability to work on multiple projects concurrently within Gantt style planning
• Proficiency in MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience connecting players together to achieve outcomes
• Strong research-based content creation, paired with strong verbal and written communication skills
• Strong desire to improve local government for the sake of all its citizens with resistance to politically motivated bias and agendas
• Demonstrated ability to learn various intuitive, modern technologies such as Miro.com and Monday.com
• High resilience and patience in working with people of varying levels of interest in human-centered design and innovation
• Superior organizational skills and ability to set priorities and respond quickly as priorities change

Bonus Qualifications:

• Knowledge of design-based innovation methodologies
• Knowledge of data-based analysis methodologies
• Pre-established local network of city stakeholders
• Familiarity of local ecosystems (community, business, and/or political)
• Experience using or exposure to Squarespace.com, Monday.com, Kumu.io, Miro.com, Nexgen (Asset management), Rocksolid (Citizen Request Managment), Tyler Munis, Routeware, PowerBI
• Call Center / Customer Service experience
• Process / Workflow mapping & improvement
• A clear understanding of the types of challenges municipal governments typically face is preferred, either through direct experience working in government or in organizations that collaborate closely with governments

Work Schedule / Environment:

• Monday – Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM
• Rare occasions of before/after-hours work will be needed to capture certain research opportunities
• Two weeks of paid vacation with a one-week increase after two years
• At-home work is permitted so long as deliverables are met and no in-office needs are present. However, employees must be able to get to the office in a reasonable amount of time if the need arises. For this, you must live locally.
• Office Location: 205 Government St. Mobile, AL 36602

Educational Opportunities:

• Educational travel, conference, and training opportunities are encouraged and may be requested with reasonable justifications and outcomes. Budgetary constraints apply.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $58,000.00 - $68,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Dental insurance
• Employee discount
• Flexible schedule
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Professional development assistance
• Retirement plan
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Mobile, AL 36644: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required)

Application Question(s):

• In 1-3 sentences, please let us know your interest in working in local government.
• Do you believe it is important to engage staff and citizens when trying to understand problems, come up with ideas, and implement solutions? Why?
• Do you have an existing citizen / professional network in Mobile, or the ability to build one? Please elaborate.
• Can you write / verbally summarize work and tell stories from challenge to solution to a wide range of audiences? Please provide an example or share your philosophy.

Experience:

• related: 2 years (Required)

Work Location: One location

Salary : $58,000 - $68,000