Delivery Advisor

Focus of the Role

At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), we work at the highest levels of government to help leaders go further and faster to make their citizens’ lives better. Moving the dial on the great global challenges of our time requires engaged, incentivised, focused and motivated leaders. When political leadership is relentlessly deployed, at the highest levels, incredible things can be achieved. 

Using our distinctive expertise and global outlook and guided by the unique insights and perspective of our Executive Chairman Sir Tony Blair, our dedicated experts and embedded teams advise governments all over the world in strategy, policy and delivery, underpinned by technology.

TBI is hiring Delivery Advisors with extensive experience working with, or for, governments to join our growing team supporting political leaders and partners on making change happen through innovative delivery mechanisms. TBI and our delivery work is growing rapidly in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

Job Introduction

Our new Global Client Solutions team is at the heart of how we define “what we do” and then distribute the best of the Institute and our networks to global leaders through our country advisory teams. As a centre of excellence, Global Client Solutions is comprised of our centrally situated global and regional experts – functional and sectoral. Our experts provide valuable counsel, technical support, thought partnership, strategy, and surge capacity and lead the development and evolution of our solutions, methods, and offers in the service of our partner governments. 

Government Delivery is about the processes, tools and techniques used by political leaders to steer more effective and faster implementation of government priorities. Delivery is at the heart of TBI’s origin story and offer, beginning with Mr. Blair’s time in Downing Street when he established the first government Delivery Unit. This means we are truly driven by outcomes and have a laser-focus on making government work. ‘Getting things done’ or ‘making change happen’ in complex delivery ecosystems is something that we take very seriously and are constantly leveraging lessons from the frontline and innovating to offer best-in-class delivery solutions to our clients. Through our embedded advisors and country teams working hand-in-hand with government counterparts we are able to assemble, tailor and distribute our offer to address specific and ever evolving needs in the various contexts we operate across the world. 

TBI is hiring global Delivery Advisors to join its Delivery anchor team. This role will be situated centrally/regionally and provide authoritative delivery advice and high-quality, hands-on and tech-oriented delivery technical backstopping to country teams and government counterparts. Reporting to Senior Delivery Advisors, Delivery Advisors will be assigned to support various workstreams according to clients’ needs, including providing surge capacity and technical backstopping to country teams, ensuring quality standards and knowledge management, as well partnerships. The successful candidates will be effective brokers of delivery knowledge, including knowledge assets (e.g., case studies, papers) as well as internal and external network of delivery. The post holders will contribute to continually enhancing and improving our approaches, methods, tools, and other central assets that drive TBI’s work on Delivery at scale.

Some of the global initiatives our Delivery practice is driving include: conducting a global study on the Future of Delivery reflecting on evolving best practices; building on user experience to drive the 2.0 version of our delivery dashboard and a toolkit on using performance data to guide decision-making; and planning for our next global delivery exchange, a platform to assemble expertise and exchange lessons on delivery from practitioners across the globe.

Please note that applicants for our Nairobi and Athens offices we do require an existing right to work.  In Abu Dhabi, Accra, London and Dakar we can consider, for the right applicant, supporting relocation and/or work permits.

Key Responsibilities

Leveraging and strengthening Delivery expertise

• Manage and nurture Community of Practice programme on delivery with embedded delivery advisors and colleagues with high fluency on delivery
• Lead internal capacity building and training efforts, including through established research and knowledge-based partnerships
• Train Country Directors and in-country advisors on all TBI’s delivery products, methodologies and tools
• Engage with network of internal and external experts to support a series of talks and events (e.g., fireside chats) on delivery

Specialised hands-on support to country teams for delivery project scoping and set up

• Support delivery scoping exercises and government delivery needs assessments, in line with global best practices and TBI’s proprietary delivery framework
• Provide expert delivery support and surge capacity, especially during inception, planning and early operationalisation phases – includes delivery assessment reports, delivery labs, stocktake meeting preparation, progress reports, delivery sprints
• Ensure standardised use and application of TBI’s delivery framework and offer across the globe, and update guidelines as needed
• Support implementation of quality assurance processes for TBI’s delivery offer
• Follow a metrics-based approach to identify risks, problem-solving and learning during implementation – make recommendations for course-correction as needed
• Support coordination of capacity building efforts on delivery for TBI’s counterparts, including implementing institutions

Pushing the frontier – innovating on delivery

• Explore and reimagine delivery with creative solutions addressing specific needs of TBI’s government counterparts
• Support the design and operationalisation of TBI’s new delivery offer. This includes but not limited to data-driven prioritization (e.g., data analytics for granular targeting), combining design thinking, behavioral insights and data science with delivery planning tools (e.g., delivery labs and sprints), and clear line of sight and tools  to scaling up results (e.g., pay-for-success contracts, outcome funds, results-based financing)
• Develop joint delivery frameworks with other advisory sectoral practices (e.g. e-government, digital ID, Agri-food) and global innovation team
• Contribute to developing, piloting and rolling-out new/innovative toolkits, templates, and ways of working (tech and non-tech)

Partnerships

• Support establishment of partnerships through ensuring TBI’s proprietary delivery methodology, impact on the ground, and strategic priorities are well reflected in the program of work
• Support mechanisms to use knowledge resources and new capabilities resulting from partnerships into TBI’s operations with country teams and practices
• Liaise with partnerships and MEL team to contribute to reporting mechanisms (e.g., data collection, preparation of reports to financiers if need be

Contribution to wider TBI

• Contribute to wider TBI corporate activities 
• Quickly become a valued and supportive team member of the GCS team, clearly linking strategy, policy and technology with delivery
• Support the Director Delivery in overall strategy development and implementation

Person Specification

Successful candidates for the role should be able to display the following:

• Significant experience in government delivery functions, management consulting or programme/project management. Experience working in a government delivery mechanism is essential and experience with adaptive management techniques such as Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation
• A proven track record of developing frameworks and tools,  process quality improvement and standardisation in addition to relevant experience of working in a project and programme environment
• Familiarity with capacity-building program development would be valuable
• High quality communication, drafting and presentation skills are essential, including in power point. Graphic design skills are an advantage
• Ability to develop and implement tools at different levels of complexity, including professional knowledge management tools and the tools of the Microsoft 365 environment
• Be a strong team player with excellent soft skills as well as flexibility to help where needed
• Highly developed analytical skills that can be deployed in a range of contexts
• Willingness to travel, sometimes at short notice
• Prior experience working with or for governments would be an added advantage
• Fluency in English is required (oral and written). French is valuable.

Please note that due to the upcoming holiday period we will not be able to advise on the success of your application until January 2023.
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About The Institute

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is a mission-driven not for profit organisation. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. We work hard, every day, to make a difference. When governments work well they are able to create economic and social change in a way that promotes fairness, social justice and opportunity. We work relentlessly to support leader and governments with the challenges they face. Giving them practical solutions and actionable insights, that once implemented, can be transformative for their people  

We do this within two connected divisions: 

 Government Advisory 

Our Government Advisory teams work directly with political leaders and governments around the world to implement reforms that improve the lives of their citizens. It works with a variety of partners and its outputs cover a range of disciplines and projects across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Asia.

 Policy Futures 

Our Policy Futures work encompasses three broad areas: 

• Renewing the Centre: developing a bold and innovative domestic policy programme to help renew the centre ground of British politics; 
• Tech and Public Policy: exploring the policy challenges and opportunities presented by the technological revolution; and 
• Extremism Policy Unit: creating solutions designed to tackle the threat of extremist ideologies in the UK and around the world. 

As an organisation, the core beliefs we all embrace are: 

• Open and Progressive: you’ll believe in the value of teamwork 
• Bold and Pragmatic: you’ll approach everything you do with integrity and authenticity 
• Optimistic Changemaker: you’ll be focused on results 

TBI believes embracing diversity and inclusion make us a better place to work.  It’s our goal to reflect everyone in society and we actively welcome applications from individuals and groups who are under-represented in the workplace. We celebrate difference be it ethnicity, religion, age, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. We will only ever assess you on your abilities and fit for a role. We’re happy to discuss any adjustments you need to ensure a level playing field during recruitment and, if you\'re successful, discuss any adjustments you might need to thrive in your role.