Consultant - Product Leadership - Portland HQ or US remote

Background:
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action -- helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.

MicroMentor is an initiative within Mercy Corps. At MicroMentor, our mission is to leverage the power of mentoring to help small businesses thrive. We do so by offering entrepreneurs direct access to a pool of committed professional volunteer mentors via a website, found at www.micromentor.org and currently undergoing the development of a multi-platform user interface (IOS, Android, and Web app). MicroMentor has an expanding community making thousands of connections every year. Entrepreneurs matched with a mentor have shown positive results in terms of improved job creation, business survival, and revenue growth.

Purpose / Project Description:
The purpose of this project is to conduct a comprehensive review and assist in the development of our product strategy framework, processes, and team structure for the upcoming 2 years.

The key objectives include:

1. Assessing a Compelling Product Vision:
   • Collaborate to articulate a clear and compelling product vision aligned with our business objectives.
   • Ensure the vision serves as a guiding light for product decisions and inspires the product team.
2. Defining a Well-Defined and Focused Product Strategy:
   • Evaluate the existing product strategy and propose improvements to ensure it is well-defined and tightly aligned with our goals.
   • Assess our strategic framework, encompassing: Vision > OKRs > Discovery > Road Map > Build > Measure > Improve
3. Optimizing Product Discovery Techniques:
   • Establish well defined Product Discovery Techniques for: framing, planning, ideation, prototyping, testing, and transformation.
   • Integrate these techniques into our product development processes to drive innovation and customer-centric solutions.
   • Define Cross-Functional Collaboration in the discovery process:
     • To encourage effective collaboration among cross-functional teams involved in the product discovery process.
     • To identify opportunities to leverage diverse areas of expertise and foster a culture of shared ownership and collaboration.
     • To establish effective feedback mechanisms:
       • Mechanisms for feedback collection, retrospectives, and process refinements to promote continuous improvement.
     • Review / recommend appropriate metrics to track the progress of our product goals and ensure transparency and accountability.

Consultant Deliverables:
As the Product Consultant, you will provide comprehensive assessment reports outlining findings, recommendations, and action plans to include:

• Revised product strategy framework, with a clear vision statement, goals and processes to guide our product road map decision making
• Organizational structure recommendations, including role definitions and responsibilities to align each role with our next Big Challenge.
• Training materials and workshops on Product Discovery Techniques for framing, planning, ideation, prototyping, testing, and transformation.
• Cross-functional collaboration guidelines to facilitate effective discovery and feedback mechanisms across teams.
• Proposal for appropriate metrics and tracking mechanisms to measure progress towards product goals.

By delivering these outputs, you will assist in improving our product strategy, fostering a customer-centric culture, and empowering our teams to achieve their goals efficiently and effectively.

Timeframe / Schedule:
Estimated 40 days of service
Contract to be of 2 months duration, working remotely

The Consultant will report to:
Director, Technology and Growth, MicroMentor

The Consultant will work closely with:
MicroMentor Product & Engineer Teams

Required Experience & Skills:

• 5-10 years of experience in relevant technical field (required)

**Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
**Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment OpportunityWe are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & EthicsMercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.