Product Design Accelerator -One Global Meals

Job Description

Company Overview

General Mills is reshaping the future of food. We believe food makes us better. It nourishes our bodies, brings us joy and connects us to each other. As one of the world's leading food companies, General Mills operates in more than 100 countries and markets more than 100 consumer brands, including Cheerios, Nature Valley, Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Annie's Homegrown, Old El Paso, Epic Provisions, Blue Buffalo and more. Are you passionate about the future of food? You've come to the right table. We want the very best talent to help lead something big.

Job Overview

The Product Design Accelerator (PDA) team coaches and inspires global brand teams to use Consumer First Design (CFD) best practices to deliver meaningfully better solutions for consumer jobs. 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 Product Design Specialist within the One Global Meals platform, this position will support teams in the use of these CFD methods for key initiatives to identify 3-year strategy and help build robust pipelines of innovation and core growth opportunities. The PDA professional will also be involved in helping teams optimize prioritized opportunities to succeed with high shelf impact at First Moment Of Truth (FMOT) through a “design for learning” approach. Creation of preliminary graphic designs for early consumer evaluation (either directly or through design consultants) is required.

This role will be expected to design learning sprints and facilitate work with cross-functional business teams independently while working closely with the Platform PDA Pillar Manager to prioritize projects, manage ongoing engagements and create customized strategies that fill unaddressed Platform/business gaps.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Plan and lead CFD sessions, such as design sprints, including coaching on:
  • Consumer empathy, Leap of Faith Assumptions (LOFA) and job to be done, total product experience, foothold consumer and design principle clarification
  • Work with teams to create Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and package for FMOT and Second Moment Of Truth (SMOT) testing
  • Lean Start Up, Agile, and Design Thinking methodologies
  • Validated learning
• Experiment to identify and adopt new and better CFD methods and learning approaches.
• Training and facilitation of cross-functional team exercises in store to identify FMOT strategies to win at shelf
• FMOT counsel and possible creation of graphic design and packaging stimulus for quantitative consumer testing such as Snapshot or HUT for our North America Retail (NAR) and International markets
• Collaborate with consumer insights and Global Product Design to create plans for sprints within larger learning plan
• Act as a consumer job expert and job champion for the platform
• Train and support the Meals PDA Champions and platform team members on consumer empathy, CFD processes and methods
  • Conduct training workshops as necessary
• Enable global synergies by communicating and sharing CFD initiatives across Innovation, Technology & Quality (ITQ)

Qualifications

• BS or BA Degree in Graphic Design, Design Thinking, Innovation Studies, Food Science, Packaging Science, Engineering or related degree
• Graphic Design experience/software proficiency in Adobe Illustrator or similar
• Consumer first design champion; passion for innovation
• Strong written, oral communication and interpersonal skills
• External orientation – agile in applying outside ideas and resources
• Strong ability to create new connections internally and externally

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years experience
• Ability to effectively collaborate with and influence cross-functional business team partners (often at senior levels in the organization)
• Ability to create graphic design elements for consumer learning and FMOT testing
• Ability to thrive in an ambiguous environment
• Capable of helping teams identify innovation and growth strategies and convert them into cohesive actions and pipelines
• Understanding of appropriate applications of CFD and Lean tools
• Self-motivated with strong organizational and leadership skills

#cb