Product Design Accelerator - Meals, Baking and Convenience & Foodservice Solutions at General Mills, Inc in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Job Description:

Job Description

Position overview

The Product Design Accelerator (PDA) is at the forefront of creating exciting new General Mills products that delight consumers. The PDA coaches and inspires business teams to use Consumer First Design (CFD) best practices to build robust pipelines of sustainable innovation solutions that deliver on deep consumer needs. The goal is development of transformational innovation and core growth pipelines using these processes founded in the tenets of Lean Start-Up, Design Thinking and Creative Problem Solving.

As a member of the team within the Meals and Baking Solutions and Convenience & Foodservice, the PDA will design, develop, and execute experiments to help teams identify and deeply understand consumer problems, support teams through in market experimentation, and guide teams through iterative launch learning behaviors. The Product Design Accelerator will be responsible for experimenting with new methods and tools to help improve best practices, and will also train teams and the organization the latest innovation principles and processes.

Accountabilities

• Coach cross-functional teams through CFD Innovation approach to projects in Meals & Baking Solutions, from problem identification through iterative launch learning
  
  
  • Primary point of contact for learning journey on the solution (product/packaging/structure)
  
  
  • Create project momentum through effective planning and coaching
  
  
  
  


• 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.


• Plan and lead CFD sessions, such as design sprints, including coaching on

• (Leap of Faith Assumptions (LOFA)s and job, circumstance, foothold and design principle clarification


• FMOT testing, remove barriers for creation of MVPs of product and package for FMOT and SMOT testing


• Lean Start Up, Agile, and Design Thinking methodologies


• Validated learning

• Collaborate with Consumer Insights and Global Product Design group to create plans for sprints within larger learning journey


• Leverage the GMI organization, applying all the CFD resources available.


• Energize diverse teams to excel beyond status quo by applying CFD tools and mindset


• Experiment to identify and adopt new and better CFD methods


• Train the organization to elevate skills and adopt insights of the CFD Innovation Approach


• Create opportunities for ITQ to build empathy around consumer jobs


• Act as a consumer job expert and job champion for business teams and the operating unit


• Other duties as assigned

Required Skills/Experiences:

• BS in Product Guidance & Insights or in Food Science, or Engineering or BA in GCI or Marketing or Innovation Studies


• 3+ years of experience with CFD methods and/or new product development


• Team facilitation skills preferred


• Qualitative research background as well as validated learning / experimentation background


• Proven ability to work collaboratively across functions, businesses and externally


• Capable of working and problem solving with high levels of ambiguity


• Strong communication skills and ability to influence business teams


• External orientation - agile in bringing outside ideas and resources


• Consumer first design champion; passion for innovation

This position requires up to 10% travel and is based in Minneapolis, MN.

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.