Sr Innovation Coach - Minneapolis, MN

OVERVIEW

Innovation Coaches guide and inspire teams to use General Mills’ innovation best practices to deliver 10x better holistic innovation solutions to deep consumer needs. The Innovation Coach will design, develop, and execute experiments to help teams identify and deeply understand consumer problems, and take teams to validating product market/fit. The innovation coach will also provide end to end hands on support and guidance to help teams navigate the innovation process.

You will be successful in this role if you are the authority in consumer discovery research, can effectively blend research with storytelling of captured data, and can train teams to approach learning on our innovation best practices. The Innovation Coach will play a critical role in partnering with teams to validate revolutionary technologies, products and business models as they develop meaningful solutions for the future.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Coach teams from problem identification through Product / Market fit, validating/invalidating problems, solutions, business models and early go-to-market approaches
• Fully immerse teams in the consumer perspective to understand their problems, needs, and pain points.
• Develop appropriate research plans to test and validate our hypotheses through an iterative series of experiments.
• Execute full research plans, from creating interview guides, writing screeners, conducting customer research, and synthesis and analysis of findings into reports.
• Selection of appropriate research methodologies to execute, including but not limited to: interviews, surveys, digital experiments, prototype tests, and ethnography.
• Energize diverse teams to excel beyond status quo by applying innovation best practice tools and mindset
  
  • Lean Start Up, Agile, and Design Thinking methodologies
  • Consumer ethnography and other consumer qualitative learning
  • Leap of Faith Assumptions (LOFA)s and potential ways to experiment
• Create project momentum through effective planning and coaching
• Create opportunities to build consumer empathy

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

• Strong background (5 years) in conducting primary consumer research in a start up and / or corporate research, consulting, agency, ethnographic, or relevant environment or capacity.
• Experience with Lean experimentation, Design Thinking, user-centered design, rapid prototyping, or similar techniques.
• Proven experience leading consumer research including:
  
  • Creating and executing customer interviews and ethnographic studies.
  • Implementing surveys, digital experiments, and usability test programs
  • Participating in iterative prototype development and testing programs
  • Facilitating and moderating research sessions in person and remotely
  • Project management programs and coordinating stakeholders and participants
• Synthesizing learnings and creating actionable reports
• Leading discussions and presentations about findings to executives and teams
• Combination of start-up experience and corporate experience preferred
• Understanding of how research drives the innovation process, finding creative ways to gather insight and inspire confidence in ambiguous situations.
• Commitment to constant learning and development as a researcher
• Team facilitation skills
• This position requires minimal travel (likely ~10% or less).

We exist to make food the world loves. But we do more than that. Our company is a place that prioritizes being a force for good, a place to expand learning, explore new perspectives and reimagine new possibilities, every day. We look for people who want to bring their best — bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge one other and grow together. Because becoming the undisputed leader in food means surrounding ourselves with people who are hungry for what’s next.

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