Jobs at Palladium International

Activity Overview and Role

Palladium seeks an Office Assistant for the Feed the Future East Africa Market Systems Activity, a 5-year task order under USAID’s Regional Integration and Stronger Economics (RISE) IDIQ mechanism. The Activity is designed to promote increased agricultural production, trade, improved policies, finance and investment, and resilience to shocks and stresses in the East Africa region by addressing agricultural issues that can only be solved on a regional basis. The Activity will collaborate closely with USAID/Kenya and East Africa’s regional intergovernmental partners, including the East African Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region. The Activity is organized under four objectives: 1) Strengthening cross-border agricultural market systems, 2) Accessing and scaling technologies, 3) Strengthening regional resilience, and 4) Strengthening the regional agriculture policy and regulatory environment. The geographic area of focus includes the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Zambia.

The Office Assistant is responsible for the overall cleaning of the office, supporting the administrative officer on facility’s maintenance, and other logistical support needed. S/he will report to the Director of Finance & Administration.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide daily office cleaning and maintenance of the office facilities.
• Track and ensure constant availability of kitchen and office supplies such as detergents, beverages, water etc.
• Prepare tea and maintain cleanliness in the kitchen.
• Ensure that the working desks and seats for all staff are clean and well maintained.
• Ensure garbage is emptied and garbage bins are kept clean.
• Bring to the immediate attention of the supervisor any shortages of stock and ensure proper storage, control, and use of all equipment, crockery, cutlery, and supplies.
• Carry out periodic checks of cleaning and kitchen equipment to ensure that it is in good working order and report any malfunction or breakdown to the supervisor in a timely manner. This includes the office lighting, taps, working tools equipment, blinds, ACs, windows, doors amongst others.
• Remain aware of all emergency procedures and assist in controlling emergencies in the kitchen.
• Support the administrative officer with logistical support function.
• Support the administrative officer with reception duties as and when required.
• Perform other tasks as may be assigned by the supervisor or requested by staff. 

Preferred Qualifications

• A certificate or a diploma in a relevant field
• 3-year work experience 
• Tertiary education 
• Ability to communicate in English
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to apply the organization's policies and procedures to complete routine tasks.

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Project Overview and Role:

We are looking for a Project Manager, to join the DIAS Regional team in Nairobi, Kenya to to provide agile and lean thinking project management approaches for our development team. S/he will provide project management support for DIAS projects while working with the development team that supports the design and development of various technology products. S/he will act as a servant leader through leading by influence to ensure that teams collaborate around a common DIAS Software development vision while fulfilling user requirements. S/he will coordinate requirements analysis, task management, Stand-up Meetings, Sprint Demos and Retrospectives in addition to validating team performance metrics, and co-facilitating Scrum of Scrums.

 Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

The project manager is responsible for overseeing software development projects, while also leading the development of a standardized software development lifecycle management approach.

Project Management:

• Work with Project and Tech Leads in developing project scopes, evaluating technical feasibility of proposed solutions, planning the software development life cycles, develop deployment schedules and budget estimation. Work with the project and development team to ensure that projects are delivered on time, within scope and budget and that any slippages are identified and mitigated on time.
• Determine and define clear roles and deliverables for team members required on specific projects, assign tasks and oversee their end to end execution
• Ensure that all user requirements, requested enhancements and reported bugs are accurately captured, validated and prioritized into the portfolio backlog, product backlogs and comprehensively logged as Epics, Features, Stories and Tasks on Jira.
• Manage User Stories at a portfolio level and ensure that they are sufficiently documented with clear acceptance criteria and that they are traceable to sprint backlogs.
• Facilitate Review sprints with Product Owners and other stakeholders to secure approval and acceptance from the Product Owners, and Retrospect sprints to capture lessons learned and actionable improvements applicable to future sprints.
• Champion the Voice of the User by supporting different teams in the consistent application of quality-focused software development and information product development approaches such as Behavior Driven Development, Acceptance Test Driven Development and CI/CD practices.

Process Improvement:

• Analyze existing SDLC project management approaches including costing and budgeting.
• Lead the development and implementation of a standardized DIAS software development project management approach, including accompanying tools and standard operating procedures (SOPs).
• Track implementation of the standard DIAS Software development Project management approach in DIAS projects
• Train and mentor project team members on agile techniques.
• Establish, refine, adapt, and manage software development and information technology operations (DevOps) processes and tools within the DIAS practice following the corporate Global ICT policies.
• Evaluate hardware and software technology options including cost benefit analysis and advise DIAS clients accordingly

Required Qualifications:

Required Experience:

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in Project Management specifically relating to technology and data solutions or Business Analyst, Business Process Analyst or Scrum Master in a technical, data driven environment.
• Solid technical background with understanding or hands on experience in software development and web technologies
• Minimum 5 years of hands-on experience working in a scrum team environment.
• Minimum 3 years of experience leading scrum teams overseeing the end-to-end design, development and implementation of software solutions or the development of information products to implement at national scale.
• Experience with successful Agile techniques such as User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing etc.
• Experience using digital tools to manage projects such as Microsoft Teams, Planner, Jira.

Skills and abilities:

• Excellent skills and knowledge of servant leadership, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency.
• Excellent coaching and mentoring skills.
• Excellent analytical, mathematical, and creative problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Logical and lean thinking.
• Keen attention to detail.
• Ability to conduct research into systems issues and products as required.
• Ability to communicate ideas in both technical and user-friendly language.
• Highly self-motivated and directed.
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Strong customer service orientation.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree IT or a related field.
• Professional training in Agile Methodologies: Scrum preferred.
• Training on Lean or Six Sigma is an added advantage.
• Project management certification from an accredited institution. PMP preferred