IT Business Intelligence Architect Contract

The State of Connecticut is embarking upon a digital transformation to uplift the lives and well-being of our residents and employees. Our goal is to improve access to our programs and services, making interaction with government easier. When you join the Connecticut Digital Service, you’ll be part of a team creating simple experiences personalized for everyone. If you enjoy solving complex problems with a curious, supportive, high-performing team, then the State of Connecticut is the place for you.
Is This You?
Big Picture Thinking. You strive to improve internal processes and externally facing solutions.
User-centric. You derive joy from working with people to drive user-centered research and testing.
Service-Oriented. You are passionate about government innovation and improving services for citizens.
About the Role
We believe service access is a social justice issue and people closest to service challenges should inform service improvement efforts. As a result, we’re looking for candidates who are passionate about evidence-based decision-making, dedicated to ethical and inclusive design, effective communicators, thrive while collaborating, and committed to the in-depth work required to drive lasting change within a large organization and complex service environment.
As the Service Designer, you’ll report to the CTDS Service Design Manager and will drive discovery, user engagement, and experience research; collect and analyze data; and conduct synthesis workshops, facilitation sessions, and journey mapping exercises. An ideal candidate should be a talented and knowledgeable researcher with fresh, creative ideas, and an excellent eye for detail. You’ll collaborate with team members to transform the digital team’s work into a rigorous and sustainable practice at the State of Connecticut.
Primary Duties
Human-Centered Research
• Use Human Centered Design based innovation approaches (involving technology, policies, processes around redesigning services) to identify the root causes of civic challenges and explore the perspectives of residents, community groups, and various internal and external stakeholders.
• Organize, support, and execute generative and evaluative experience design research activities.
• Work collaboratively with researchers across cross functional teams and disciplines.
• Collaborate with various program areas, internal and external stakeholders, the public, and various agencies to conduct research.
• Lead workshops/facilitation sessions and user engagement activities to gather information from residents, clients, people with lived experience, community groups, and other stakeholders.
• Collaborate with research participants, the public, and community stakeholder to understand individual personas, customer journeys, and personal situations.
• Collect and analyze user behavior through qualitative contextual research (i.e., field visits, ethnography, surveys, benchmark studies, etc.).
• Design, develop, and administer questionnaires, surveys, data collection sheets, interview questions to gather information.
Synthesis & Communication
• Produces compelling and concise narratives and visual frameworks to drive comprehension of complex topics and concepts and persuade stakeholders (i.e; journey maps, service blueprints, process maps, etc.)
• Apply an understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies by gathering, reviewing, and analyzing statistical data to make recommendations for process and analog improvements (i.e., handouts, templates, communications material etc.).
• Synthesize and evaluate data gathered through design research to uncover and successfully communicate root cause insights and generate corresponding design pillars.
• Analyze issues impacting the public, formulating research objectives, and designing and developing implementation strategies on project work.
• Advocate research findings to diverse audiences through written reports, presentations, and public channels.
• Converse in general back-end technological terms but also be able to simplify jargon into more digestible language for less-technical audiences.
• Provide support through the coordination of administrative research duties including note taking, documentation, taking pictures in-field, recruiting, screening, and scheduling research participants, working with transcribers, etc.
• Prepare background studies and briefing notes for projects and assignments.
Cross-Functional Support
• Collaborate with product, business, and technology teams, sharing design research insights and ideas to build proofs-of-concepts, prototypes, and service blueprints that solve business problems and create new opportunities (e.g., customer acquisition, improved customer experience, revenue generation).
• Makes recommendations on future stages of design phases based on research.
• Provide design research support through all product development iterations, ensuring research insights and customer needs are taken into consideration.
• Collect, analyze, evaluate, and interpret information/findings to develop recommendations for design and product improvement.
• Make recommendations on processes, policies, and data; track key performance indicators; and suggest improvement of services and operations, based on research findings, to ensure a seamless end-to-end customer experience.
• Support all design aspects and reviews wireframes and storyboards for digital products.
Practice-Building
• Provide subject matter expertise in Human Centered Design approaches and research methods.
• Ensure accessibility and inclusivity when engaging with stakeholders and research participants.
• Share and teach others about design methodologies through formal and informal sessions such as lunch and learns.
Preferred Skills & Qualifications
Other Desirable Qualifications
• A design-related degree or relevant industry experience
• Knowledge of a variety of design tools (e.g., Adobe Suite, Miro, Microsoft Office Suite, etc.).
• 3+ years of professional experience or a graduate degree
• 3+ years managing project relationships with colleagues, clients, and project stakeholders
Nice-to-Have Skills
• Bilingual
• Strong visual design aesthetic
• Experience with community-based and participatory design
• Experience working in the social impact space on complex service challenges
Administrative Considerations
The Service Designer will work as part of an iterative team using agile sprints. Tasks may be adjusted, reduced, or expanded as the project work progresses through various phases. The contract employee shall be expected to maintain and provide written documentation on any work performed in conjunction with this engagement.
The engagement will be for a term of up to 12 months. All work will be performed within a forty (40) hour work week Monday to Friday, generally in eight (8) hour shifts, excluding State holidays. Payment will be on a time and material basis and paid only for hours worked. State Agencies are in downtown Hartford and the Greater Hartford area. Local travel reimbursement is not provided.
Security/Privacy Considerations: Information accessible by the contractor may be sensitive, confidential, or subject to the Privacy Act and/or HIPAA considerations. Contractor personnel must be familiar with and comply with the provisions of appropriate regulations and/or instructions. Signing of a confidentiality agreement will be required. Daily sign-in to the facility may be required. The contractor employee must always display an access badge while present in state facilities. A background check will be required.