Design Specialist for Rail, Connected Places Catapult

• Expert knowledge of user research and participatory design methods, principles and applications
• Proven ability in carrying out user research studies and or scoping and designing services, products and process or leading design for innovation projects
• Experience of working on design and user research projects, ideally within the rail sector
• Knowledge and expertise regarding organisational behaviour and innovation culture, including experience in eliciting the needs and organisational behaviours of teams and organisations and presenting on these
• Expertise and experience in workshop facilitation and carrying out co-creational methods with different organisations sectors, complexity of subject matter and levels of expertise
• Experience in developing, prioritising and articulating evidenced based strategic innovation themes and challenge areas
• Providing and presenting recommendation for accelerating innovation practice, could be via requirements logs, process flows, strategic roadmaps and playbooks
• Excellent communication skills to engage people in a design process (co-design workshops, citizen engagement, usability testing, prototype refinements, etc.)
• Ability to effectively communicate with and manage complex stakeholder groups
• Experience helping organisations become more user-centred and design focused with their own tools, processes and cultures
• Experience leading project teams
• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to collaborate with, and co-ordinate multi-disciplinary project teams
• Interfacing with external clients, delivering work to meet their needs and objectives, and managing expectations
• Experience overseeing and managing subcontractors, could be academic or research agencies
• Ability to effectively present findings to client and audiences, responsive and open to feedback and questions
• Flexible, with the ability to contribute to multiple projects at the same time
• Comfortable with ambiguity, and ability to turn abstract concepts into focused outputs
• Experience in working in flexible, project-focused environments, requiring pro-active internal communication

Desirable

• We are looking for someone to leverage expertise in user research, design and convening to convene actors across Routes & Regions, as well as applying an innovative and inclusive mindset to bring in suppliers and SMEs who can drive change
• You will work across the Rail sector to help small businesses to trial real solutions in real environments, making real changes to our railways and those who travel on them. You will support Network Rail to innovate and drive organisational change
• The Design Specialist will join Connected Places Catapult’s Human Insights Team
• You will deliver research and lead streams of work which facilitate actors from across the rail ecosystem to understand challenges that can be addressed through innovation – and then to work across Connected Places Catapult and the innovation community to address those challenges
• You will work hand in hand with our HCD colleagues, the New Mobility Technologies team’s systems engineers and the CPC project managers
• You will enable the delivery of quality outputs to ensure ethical integration of new and converging technologies to solve real problems and maximise value for individuals and communities
• You will be passionate and enthusiastic about making a difference to peoples’ lives and the well-being of the planet. You will want to apply your approach and skills to help create better and more inclusive places and transport
• Technically leading and delivering rail projects
• Facilitating participant and stakeholder discussions and co-creational methods
• Carrying out research methods and presenting observations of current working practice
• Stakeholder mapping and the identification and design of operational design and process flows
• Engaging with different stakeholder groups to elicit needs and requirements
• Identifying and prioritising evidenced-based challenge and innovation streams
• Strategically aligning activities and action to create impact for identified challenge and innovation streams, including recommending strategic roadmaps of activity and spinning out projects
• Providing oversight across multiple challenge and innovation streams and drawing out synergies and differences across the different streams
• Identifying opportunities and barriers to innovation in different rail organisations
• Advising on action, process and activity to foster both innovation culture and collaborative working practice in different rail organisations
• Clearly articulating outputs to clients and stakeholders using varied and inclusive formats, this will include hosting presentations, report writing, and developing playbooks
• Reporting to clients and managing their expectations
• Providing clear work proposals, setting project objectives and guiding other project team members
• Ensuring the project team are aware of and are understanding of the client ask and primary objectives
• Carrying out quality assurance of work carried out by other project team members and subcontractors
• Coaching small and medium enterprises and start-up in HCD methods and ethos
• Commissioning work to external agencies and academia and ensuring delivery of high-quality outputs
• Demonstrating working or in-depth knowledge of your discipline to guide human connected design principles and ethos across the work we do
• Design of research methods and guides which can be carried out by colleagues and external agencies
• Willing to travel to different locations to carry out research in the field
• Representing Connected Places Catapult within global and UK-wide innovation project consortiums
• Ensuring an inclusive and people-focused ethos through the work you deliver
• Additionally, you may be required to undertake other reasonable duties to support the Catapult in achieving its strategic outcomes and ensure effective business operations