Data Scientist Manager TTI-80

PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Washington, DC, (Telework Subject to Approval)

SCOPE: Position Description (Data Science Manager)

The Maasai Group, LLC. Is seeking a Data Science Manager to oversee the development of data science projects that promote a greater emphasis on evaluating the outcomes and influence of American Spaces, managed by the U.S. Department of State, in support of data-informed decision-making and strategic planning. American Spaces are the U.S. government’s primary public cultural and information centers abroad that provide free and open access for communities worldwide interested in learning more about the United States.  Through people-to-people connections and a modern environment equipped with advanced technologies, American Spaces serve as the initial exchange that millions of global visitors have with the United States, building mutual understanding and partnership.  The U.S. Department of State supports some 600 American Spaces that are linked to nearly 170 U.S. embassies and consulates in 140 countries. These centers offer programs and events that foster learning, discussion, and civic engagement around democratic principles.  Work assignments will be made by the ECA/A/M Policy Unit Chief, who serves as the contractor’s site manager.

All TMG employees will need to meet the requirements set forth in Executive Order 14042 and the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force Guidance requiring all covered contractor personnel to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19

SKILL REQUIREMENTS:

• Experience in driving data science projects from start to finish, utilizing best practices and prior experience in creating an analytics plan, shaping customer questions, and leveraging existing efforts to speed up analytics projects. Proven creative, analytical, and critical thinking skills.  Must have a minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience managing the development and implementation of data science projects.
• Experience in developing and delivering training to empower colleagues and end users of databases, surveys, and dashboards to effectively utilize such technologies. Must have a minimum of three years experience delivering training on data science projects to end users.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain a commanding knowledge of many complex and interrelated data science lines of effort, and to ensure that these multiple lines of effort move forward in ways that are seamlessly complementary to each other.
• Experience using oral and written communications to develop, negotiate, and defend recommendations; present briefings on sensitive and controversial subjects; and provide guidance and instructions.
• Continual updating of knowledge of the latest technological advancements.
• Ability to utilize analytic methods to conduct (1) database extraction and cleaning, (2) simplified data modelling in Excel, (3) oversight of data modelling by others in a variety of programming languages, and (4) analytical output design through visualization or dashboard development.
• Ability to understand and communicate with team members about the implications of data projects and data modeling for program and U.S. foreign policy goals.
• Ability to develop constructive relations with the full range of American Spaces practitioners, overcoming potential language barriers and cultural differences. Demonstrated ability to have a flexible, collaborative, team-oriented approach to work.
• Knowledge of and ability to use customer relations management services (such as Salesforce), collaboration software (such as SharePoint and Microsoft Planner); data analysis tools (such as Google Analytics); database technologies, including, but not limited to, query construction and data normalization; survey technologies (such as Qualtrics); data visualization technologies including Excel, PowerBI, and Tableau; Microsoft Office and G Suite applications; and a full range of devices, formats, platforms, and content.
• Demonstrated ability to work on tight deadlines. Proven organizational skills and multi-tasking abilities.  Proven ability to work independently, with minimal supervision, and multi-task in a high volume, fast-paced work environment.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Co-lead OASIS development with ECA/EX/IT.  This includes the following:
  • Co-leading the OASIS Champions Team, including revising Champions Team membership from time to time to ensure appropriate subject matter expert input, and revising the meeting schedule as needed;
  • Leading ECA/A/M participation in weekly OASIS development coordination meetings with the ECA/EX/IT OASIS development team, to conduct agile modifications to the content and prioritization of the backlog list of user stories; and
  • Leading ECA/A/M participation in periodic sprint review meetings with ECA/EX/IT to review tasks and objects at the end of one sprint and the beginning of the next sprints.
  • Serves as senior technical advisor to the Policy Unit Chief, who is the official OASIS product owner.
• Coordinate with the rest of the Policy Unit, the Field Support Unit, and other American Spaces practitioners on the evolving content of the OASIS user stories backlogs, with a focus on identifying emerging needs and ensuring that previously identified needs are met.  Ensure that the range of user stories covers the full range of capabilities needed in OASIS Phases One, Two, and Three, as well as the full range of reports and dashboards that should make use of data provided in Phases One, Two, and Three.
• Develop OASIS training in cooperation with ECA/EX/IT, the ECA/A/M Vienna Training Office, and other American Spaces practitioners to ensure (1) sufficient piloting during development that will ensure effective modification, and (2) timely adoption reporting by necessary users globally.  Deliver such training, including training REPS as trainers who will also be able to deliver the same training within their portfolios.  Various rounds of training will be necessary, as additional OASIS modules and capabilities are developed.
• Coordinate with the rest of the Policy Unit, ECA/EX/IT, the Field Support Unit, and REPS to schedule pilot testing, recruit participants, and scale up from pilot testing to full-scale use of OASIS.  Various rounds of piloting and scale up will be necessary, as additional OASIS modules and capabilities are developed.
• Coordinate with the ECA/EX/IT Vision 21 team to resolve issues of access to the Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) Goal data set which is co-managed by F and BP.
• Coordinate with the ECA/EX/IT Vision 21 team and CfA to transition multiple reports and dashboards in both Vision 21 and the American Spaces Dashboards suite to pull data from OASIS, instead of from the current GoogleSheets.
• Provide guidance to the Senior Data Analyst contractor on how to ensure successful upload into OASIS of all historical American Spaces data.
• Modify M&E Toolkit documents to ensure that (1) guidance documents are presented in digestible components; (2) program-specific reporting corresponds correctly to the American Spaces Pillars; (3) and surveys correspond adequately with the MODE framework.
• Adjust the program-specific data reporting on program themes to correspond adequately with the SPSD, using a crosswalk of themes being developed by a Data Analyst contractor.  This includes recommending potential modifications to the list of themes presented in the annual ASSF guidance and used by the Programming Team to organize programming packages.
• Once use of ICS Goal data is secured, work with ECA/EX/IT OASIS developers to ensure that the M&E Toolkit’s program-specific data reporting by posts and Spaces will align with each post’s individualized set of ICS Goals.
• Coordinate closely with the rest of the Policy Unit, the Field Support Unit, REPS and other American Spaces practitioners to develop a recommendation on how frequently each type of M&E Toolkit survey should be used, and which Spaces should be required to use them.  Answers may vary by type of Space, size of Space, and/or the individual survey type.  This task needs to be approached sensitively:  deciding too soon, or too permissively, could result in greater resistance to use of the surveys and/or less actual survey use, which would reduce the effectiveness of dashboards and reports which will use survey data.  Success on this task will result in as widespread of use as possible, within appropriate limits (for example, none of the surveys is designed for use on a daily basis, or for every single program conducted).
• Develop M&E Toolkit training in cooperation with ECA/MELI, the ECA/A/M Vienna Training Office, and other American Spaces practitioners to ensure (1) sufficient piloting during development that will ensure effective decisions about deployment, and (2) timely adoption by necessary users globally.  Deliver such training, including training REPS as trainers who will also be able to deliver the same training within their portfolios.  Various rounds of training will be necessary, as additional M&E Toolkit components are deployed.
• Coordinate with the rest of the Policy Unit, ECA/MELI, the Field Support Unit, and REPS to schedule pilot testing, recruit participants, and scale up from pilot testing to full-scale use of M&E Toolkit components.  Various rounds of piloting and scale up will be necessary, as additional M&E Toolkit components are deployed.
• Recommend to the Policy Unit Chief how use of OASIS and the M&E Toolkit may be best reflected in revisions to the American Spaces Handbook, American Spaces Standards, and other policy documents such as descriptions of the Five Pillars, policy on what constitutes a Space (including different scales of Spaces).
• Just as importantly, work with all of these interested parties to develop new reports and dashboards that will utilize the M&E Toolkit data, presenting those data in various formats appropriate to the needs and interests of various potential users.  This will require determining which reports and dashboards would best be built internal to OASIS vs being hosted on the Vision 21 or data.state.sbu internal website/SharePoint platforms, and which users (potentially including non-USG Spaces staff who will have OASIS accounts) should be able to access each report and dashboard.
• Work with the Field Support Unit and the rest of the Policy Unit to develop tools that will improve the ASSF process and further demonstrate the effectiveness of ASSF investments.  In addition to work on OASIS itself, this task potentially includes:
  • Modeling, or working with data scientists in the ECA/EX/IT OASIS and Vision 21 Teams and/or CfA to model, whether there are correlations between funding and outputs or, better still, outcomes.
  • Developing recommendations for baseline target funding to be received by each country and/or Space.  Initially, such recommendations could be based on historical funding levels, and independent estimates of the costs required to successfully operate a Space.  As these efforts mature, such recommendations could include developing a funding index that takes into account the various factors that influence needs, the factors contributing to success that ECA/A/M wants to emphasize, and the disparities associated with Purchasing Power Parity as well as historical practices to designate some Spaces as “Priority” Spaces.
  • Recommending approaches to quantifying the funding shortfall for American Spaces.  This may include developing independent estimates of the costs required to successfully operate Spaces of various sizes, types, and longevities; developing and implementing for-attribution surveys that obtain objective information about funding shortfalls; and/or improved tracking through OASIS of the funding being used by posts and Spaces from sources other than ASSF.
• Recommend whether pursuing interoperability with the Salesforce-based PD Tools and CRM applications is viable, and if so, how best to accomplish interoperability to minimize data entry workload for users and maximize the potential benefits to users.

• Maintain a commanding knowledge of the interrelated nature of all of these data projects, so as to ensure that they all move forward in ways that are complementary to each other without leaving important gaps in their ability to meet American Spaces practitioners’.

DECISION MAKING/JUDGEMENT: This position involves projects and/or assignments requiring considerable decision-making authority regarding procedures, processes, plans, and schedules. Ability to work independently or in a team setting is necessary.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS/WORK ENVIRONMENT:  The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Needs ability to use a keyboard to enter and retrieve data. .
• Must be able to lift 5-20 pounds.
• Remaining in a stationary position, often standing, or sitting for prolonged periods.
• Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another.
• Local travel and CONUS/OCONUS may be required.