CoBank's Forge Innovation Lab needs an Innovation Engagement Manager to develop solutions for customer needs by leveraging expertise in Design Thinking and human-centered design to help multidisciplinary teams solve complex business problems.
Requirements
- Prior Experience in Design Thinking, Agile, and Lean Startup required
- Ability to capture datapoints and attention to detail, with a data-driven approach to understand customer requirements.
- Ability to structure workshop formats and agendas including pre-work consulting with stakeholders
- Understanding of human-centered design principles.
- Ability to bridge the gap between technology, business and customers.
- Versatile in visual design skills, presentation development and prototyping.
- Strong facilitation and people skills to collaboratively lead workshops, ensuring the capture of diverse ideas and with a high level of participant engagement.
Responsibilities
- Facilitates ideation sessions and workshops, applying creative thinking and structured innovation methods.
- Delivers engaging, hands-on workshops using Design Thinking principles and established innovation frameworks.
- Coordinates with internal teams and external partners to ensure smooth execution of customer engagements and immersion events.
- Manages sprint logistics, including backlog grooming, daily standups, and tracking deliverables.
- Produces and organizes workshop outputs such as Lean Canvases, Journey Maps, and prototypes, ensuring clarity and accessibility for stakeholders.
- Keeps teams aligned with project goals and timelines, reinforcing priorities and maintaining momentum.
- Captures stakeholder goals and maps initial journeys to support alignment and clarity at the start of engagements.
Other
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Product Design, Communication, Marketing, Education, or similar relevant field required
- Design Thinking Certification and/or formal course work preferred
- 2 years of experience in planning, facilitating and leading internal/external ideation workshops required
- Self-motivated and dedicated to continuous iterative improvement.
- Ability to build trusting relationships across the organization.
