Service Design Strategist (Implementation Focus)

Job Description
Salary:
The maximum salary for this role is $95,000.
Position summary:
As a Service Design Strategist with a focus on implementation, you’ll:
Lead service improvement projects and initiatives.Manage multiple, concurrent projects and priorities, including delegating and coordinating tasks and responsibilities across team members.
Navigate ambiguity and challenges with creative problem-solving, a focus on generating solutions, and grace.
Set and provide a direction and vision for and with a project team.
Provide mentoring, guidance, and support to project team members.
Contribute to the growth of the Service Design and Delivery Practice Area within the PHL Service Design Studio and the broader field of research and evaluation.Report to and be mentored by the Service Design and Delivery Practice Lead.
Collaborate with colleagues to grow the Practice for long-term sustainability.
Lead skill-share sessions with colleagues to help them apply service design methods to their work.
In the near-term, you’ll be working with a cross-agency team to deliver projects connected to—ensuring a local government that’s visible, responsive, and effective.
Essential functions:
Design research
Plan research goals, data collection methods, and research sample.
Develop research protocol, data collection tools, and other materials.
Conduct and facilitate research activities and related processes to collect qualitative data.
Lead or support synthesis and analysis processes to generate meaningful insights and narratives.
Communicate research findings and opportunities to relevant audiences.
Design strategy
Collaboratively generate a broad range of solutions and future vision with diverse audiences.
Design tools like blueprints, process flows, systems maps, etc. to communicate current state and future opportunities.
Develop actionable strategies and recommendations for improvement.
Create roadmaps or plans for long- and short-term improvements and initiatives.
Prototyping
Develop low- and high-fidelity prototypes of service concepts and improvements (or collaborate with technical experts to do so).
Test prototypes for usability, accessibility, and effectiveness with stakeholders.
Iterate on prototypes with feedback from stakeholders and implementation requirements.
Implementation
Design or build improvements at scale or collaborate with technical experts to do so.
Plan and conduct pilot tests in collaboration and with support from SDS evaluators.
Develop strategies and plans to support the roll out and implementation of new improvements.
Consult and coach service delivery staff or teams in adapting improvements in response to changing requirements and real time feedback.
Develop governance plans, accountability strategies, templates, and other documentation to maintain and embed improvements within and beyond the organization.
Project management
Create a project scope of work.
Develop and maintain project plans and timelines.
Ability to manage multiple, concurrent projects and priorities, including by delegating and coordinating tasks and responsibilities across team members.
Lead project partners, project team, and work streams effectively.
Proactively and clearly communicate the status of project work to stakeholders.
Navigate ambiguity and challenges with creative problem-solving, a focus on generating solutions, and grace.
Leadership
Set and provide a direction and vision for and with a project team.
Provide mentoring, guidance and support to project team members.
Contribute thought leadership within the City and to the larger design community.
Understand and negotiate City structures to advocate for people-centered service design.
Standards development
Contribute to the development and maintenance of SDS’s standards, tools, and other resources.
Support other SDS colleagues in applying practice area standards to their projects.
Competencies, knowledge, skills, and abilities
Values-based practice:
Demonstrate commitment to equitable process and outcomes, prioritize the voices most impacted by change and service challenges, and practice emotional intelligence and cultural humility.
Systems thinking:
Understand and work across the complexity and interconnectedness of systems, issues, organizational structures, and ways of working.
Inclusive facilitation:
Facilitate meetings, workshops, and conversations that encourage active participation, rebalance power asymmetries, practice cultural humility, and help groups build consensus or make decisions collectively.
Communication:
Practice clear, accessible, and honest articulation of complex ideas and approaches through spoken, written, and visual formats.
Collaboration:
Manage conflicts with sensitivity, give and request thoughtful feedback, and practice emergence towards shared goals and agreements.
Relationship building:
Build a culture of mutual care, deep listening, reflection, and celebration.
Continuous learning:
Engage in ongoing reflection and learning as well as be aware of and adapt to current trends and practices in design, government, and analogous fields of practice.