Senior Data and Learning Advisor

About Mercy Corps

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.
Now, and for the future.**Program / Department Summary**

The Tola project is a key member of the Program Performance and Quality (PaQ) department which consists of functions for monitoring and evaluation (M&E), program management, and gender integration. The PaQ team was created to help every Mercy Corps program establish and maintain a gold standard for performance and impact. Our mission is to ensure all Mercy Corps country programs are using data-driven evidence to demonstrate results toward solving complex global programs. One of the top priorities for the PaQ team, Tola is Mercy Corps' in-house digital tool for managing and organizing data. Tola functions as a digitized indicator tracking table, and allows programs to see where their activities are directly linked to results, and where they can adapt their activities to have greater impact. It was specifically designed to facilitate program teams in fulfilling their mission. By putting all of your data -- program outputs, indicators and evidence -- in one traceable, transparent place, Tola has the power to improve program management and boost data quality, helping teams maximize their impact.**General Position Summary**

Tola is a web-based platform that is being rolled out to all Mercy Corps countries since January 2016. The Senior Data and Learning Advisor is responsible for leading a country's roll-out and adoption of Tola across Mercy Corps' global portfolio. In addition, this position supports our development team to provide context for new features based on feedback from key stakeholders. This position is a crucial member of the Tola project team as well as the broader Performance & Quality Team. This includes promoting the use of M&E and ICT systems to support a country team's ability for learning and use of data. Tola is a project-based initiative and this position is funded through the duration of the project in June 2019.
Essential Job Responsibilities
Roll-out Implementation & Capacity Development

• Leads and collaborates with program, MEL, and leadership teams to support the roll-out and adoption of Tola in a country through remote and in country support - such as review of program log frames and indicator plans, data collection methods, roles & responsibilities of M&E in program teams, tools to manage evidence and data-sets, etc.
• Provides clear, consistent tracking of country progress and updates back to country leadership teams, escalating issues and engaging key stakeholders when necessary
• Leads and facilitates key rollout events such as in-country trainings, including content development ensuring quality and alignment to drive PaQ strategy
• Develops and executes training strategies for country and HQ teams to ensure uptake of system by the intended audience and training materials are being utilized to facilitate ongoing capacity building at scale
• Works closely with MEL stakeholders at HQ and field to advocate and support the uptake of M&E best practices, including mobile data collection support, use of standardized indicators and methods to ensure data protection and security

• Collaborates with country teams to enable effective data usage through participatory reflective, analysis and learning approaches**System Development**

• Liaises with development team to determine which features are delivered and prioritized in a release based on feedback from stakeholders

• In coordination with User Experience Lead, gathers business requirements from stakeholders and provides context for requirements for development team

• Supports quality assurance and accepting/testing the functional deliverable meets the business requirements and new features are being used as intended by the targeted user**User Support**

• Develops user support materials as new features are deployed to production, such as drafting release notes and a newsletter, creating screencasts of new features, and developing/updating an online user manual

• Facilitates webinars or 1:1 discussions with targeted users of new features to promote the uptake of the system

Organizational Learning
As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Accountability to Beneficiaries
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.**Minimum Qualifications**

• MA or equivalent in a relevant social science, international development, data science, economics or other relevant field
• At least 5-7 years direct professional experience in the international development or humanitarian response field, preferably with 2-3 years managing direct implementation of a program and team.
• 3-5 years of M&E experience with the proven use of program technology, preferably with a solid understanding of both agency-level software systems and field program level solutions.
• Passion for handling large amounts of data and transforming it into compelling visualizations that facilitate analysis and decision-making.
• Experience with theoretical and practical background in research or M&E and knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and techniques required.
• Proven experience in using digital tools for data collection (such as Ona, CommCare, Kobo Toolbox) and data visualizations (such as Google Data Studio, Power BI, etc).
• Exemplary organizational, communication and presentation skills.
• Experience leading or facilitating trainings, learning events, design workshops, etc with field teams.
• Excellent writing skills and the ability to clearly articulate key messages for multiple audiences and stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in using an agile approach for managing a program, human-centered design, or design thinking are strongly valued.
• Experience implementing large-scale change initiatives.
• Skilled at navigating complex problems and convening multiple, cross-functional stakeholders together to build shared ownership and buy-in.
• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, and experience with statistical/graphical software (R, iPython notebooks, Stata) or spatial software (QGIS, ArcGIS) preferred.
• Demonstrated understanding of advanced statistical techniques and the ability to summarize, generalize, and make predictions from large data sets.
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  Success Factors **

This position will aim to narrow the gap between M&E and program management by striving to produce information and learning that is used by program teams to make strategic and operational decisions. The successful candidate will have experience leading or supporting use of technology platforms for monitoring and evaluation. The successful candidate will have proven experience working with a cross-cultural team in a rapidly changing environment, and will make effective communication a priority in all situations. The successful candidate will demonstrate a strong commitment to delivering quality products and building great teams.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position will be based in Portland, OR or Washington DC. This role will include regular travel to country offices across the agency up to 30-40% of the time. Travel may be to insecure and/or austere locations.

Mercy Corps Team members represent the agency both during and outside of work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/TDY to a field posting. 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.

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