IUCN manages a large number of grant-making facilities, designed as part of individual projects. Currently, at least 32 projects use grant-making as a delivery mechanism worldwide and the portfolio continues to grow.
However, there is no established global responsibility for the overall portfolio of grant-making in IUCN and there is no global IT solution. This has led to each grant-making facility to develop its own processes and IT solutions, spending both project and core funds.
IUCN now aims to develop an IUCN-wide solution for delivering a grants management platform globally. A Charter has been drafted to guide its development and a Steering Committee has been set up to provide direction.
The IUCN Grants Management System Product Manager will play a crucial role in assessing the current needs for a global platform and in designing and implementing the different phases of this project.
Job Description:
General responsibilities:
Maintain the Project Charter document for an IUCN Grants Portal and drive the process to help finalise it.
Develop a deep understanding of business goals and processes to inform product priorities and recommendations for improvement.
Develop strong relationships and regularly communicate with product stakeholders and customers to shape the product strategy and surface and prioritize needs.
Maintain the backlog of product features to be developed and prioritise them.
Establish product roadmaps and release plans that satisfy requirements and achieve business outcomes.
Contribute to translating business requirements into actionable product and technical requirements.
Determine internal and external resources and skills required for the product team to deliver on the product roadmap.
Guide the product engineering team to scope, plan and deliver work, applying established delivery methodologies (e.g., agile methods) and best practices (e.g., reusability).
Proactively identify and resolve blockers to achieve business objectives for the product, including technical and resourcing challenges.
Ensure alignment and adherence to IUCN corporate, financial and IT standards (e.g., architecture, compliance, security).
Increase adoption of the product and monitor usage of product capabilities.
Organise training to help onboarding and to ensure correct usage of the system.
Liaise with the IUCN Grants Portal Steering Committee as needed.
Follow IUCN Procurement Policy for the identification of service providers.
Prepare contracts with the external developer as required.
Monitor and report on income and expenses for the project.
Keep up to date with the solutions and capabilities of off the shelf products in this area.
This position will be required to undertake the following tasks:
Compile and maintain inventory of all the projects that have a grant-making component and that would become users of the IUCN Grants Portal based on project portal record. Provide report on trends to Steering Committee. Provide feedback on data quality and suggestion for improvements to the Institutional Performance Management and Evaluation unit.
Review and confirm the roadmap for new features of the system that includes support for: Amendments, Concept note process, Monitoring and evaluation, support for ESMS, support for invitation only process, furthermore improve user interface.
Plan for integration with other IUCN systems: finance for tracking distribution and use of funds, Project Portal and CRM to provide information about grantees and Electronic Document Management System to store relevant document in order to facilitate more efficient archiving, search and audits.
Develop extensive reporting features (a.k.a tracker) using IUCN Power BI system or equivalent.
Review the use of the template manager and provide clear specification on when should template manager be used to customise the system and when not. Address any issues with the current use of the template manager and ensure no hardcoded solutions are present.
Furthermore, plan and execute the onboarding for all identified new programmes. This includes planning for training and configuration of the system, maintain the agreed roll out schedule and obtaining user acceptance before onboarding.
Monitor the release schedule and quality of the delivery from the Developer. For this purpose coordinate user acceptance testing and functional testing where required.
Coordinate and ensure that the system is sufficiently documented including user and technical documentation.
Organise and coordinate all maintenance activities. Coordinate resolution of all incidents. This includes monitoring of incidents in order to ensure they are correctly prioritised and resolved. The resolution might require coordination with internal 1st level support to 2nd level support with the solution provider and also ensuring that all stakeholders are aware of the support approach including escalation. Monitor support and maintenance costs.
Requirements:
Education:
University degree in Computer Science or related field.
Experience:
5-8 years of product management or related experience.
Experience determining and overseeing software development initiatives and estimating resource requirements.
Strong experience in understanding business partner and client needs.
Demonstrated success in defining and building products.
Skills:
Relationship building and collaboration skills across diverse and matrixed stakeholders and customers.
Ability to surface, prioritize, and balance multiple stakeholder priorities.
Strong project management skills to manage multiple projects and deadlines simultaneously.
Excellent problem solving and analytical skills, including experience leveraging data to inform decision making and independently solving software engineering problems.
Expertise in strategic thinking and strong business acumen.
Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical information in a condensed manner to various stakeholders verbally and in writing.
English – native level required; French and Spanish are an advantage.
Ability to take initiative, exercise good judgment, and resolve complex issues.
Ability to cope with varied workload and flexible working hours, and able to work independently.
A demonstrated high-level ability to work in a multi-cultural, international organisation, applying high standards of respect, tolerance and support required.
