Transparency and Open Data Product Manager

"DFID has a good reputation for transparency, but expectation continues to grow and we need to keep pushing our ambition. We are now recruiting a driven Service Manager to oversee the continued development of DFID’s transparency tools, ensuring to meet evolving user needs, both internally within DFID, but also with our wide range of external users. This is a challenging role that requires strong analytical skills to understand user needs and problems and support the communication and delivery of a solution to meet these needs. 

DFID’s transparency is based on international open data standards, particularly the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard for international development and humanitarian activities. Transparency is supported by a set of internal and external software and data tools, including SQL-to-IATI, Development Tracker and other internal MI tools. These tools bring together information from DFID’s line of business systems (Aid Management Platform, finance system and document management system) and support the publication of data.  The key functions of this role are the following:  • Develop strategic overviews, ministerial submissions and business cases that enable continued investment in key priorities around transparency  • Lead the transparency team to deliver new features and improvements to existing features to meet evolving user needs  • Gather and understand user needs from a wide range of internal and external users  • Ensure regular in-depth feedback from our users to inform future development  • Create effective, prioritised product descriptions that deliver the features our users need and plan how to deliver them  • Facilitate understanding between a multi-disciplined agile delivery team and our strategic policy and front-line staff  • Work closely with the Management Information team within DFID to ensure consistency and quality of data in both internal and external datasets, and to identify opportunities for using open data to provide a better service to internal users  • Work with external stakeholders in other government departments and the international community to improve the coverage, quality and usability of data within the international system"