Fractional leadership

About

The first stages of a new program, product, or service are always the messiest and the hardest to work through, and it can be hard for staff to pivot from current work. I will engage on the initial execution and get it firmly established prior to handing off to a permanent staff member.

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Example 1: Product Leadership

With EdFuel, I engaged to develop the initial product vision and prototype, build internal product capacity, and engage a design and dev team aligned to their values and product needs.

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I embedded with the team as a fractional product lead so I could fully represent them with clients and contractors. 

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During this time, I: 

• Conducted deep user research

• Aligned the team on the problems to solve first and foremost, based in research

• Defined the user's ideal state and success metrics

• Led a design sprint to create the first team-aligned prototype

• Iteratively tested with users

• Defined the durable product strategy, based in user need, prototype performance, competitive & market analysis, and EdFuel's business model

• Engaged a design and dev partner to bring the product to life

• Partnered with design and dev to build, launch, and iterate

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Example 2: Strategy & Ops

With Women Innovators, I engaged as the initial Executive Director to implement the strategy & develop the internal capabilities needed for long-term durability. A 3-month pilot was defined with clear objectives and key results to align everyone to goals and success metrics.

During that pilot, I:

• Clearly defined W.IN’s theory of change and associated impact metrics;

• Baselined organizational impact metrics & started tracking for all events;

• Created, launched & analyzed the first community survey, establishing a snapshot of needs, perspectives, and desires across 100 beneficiaries & supporters;

• Established a 2-year programming roadmap & its associated operational needs;

• Quantified funding needed to support the roadmap and kicked off fundraising planning;

• Applied for 3 grants that would fully fund programming for the following year (decision pending at time of writing); 

• Piloted new internal operational tools such as a PM tool & board member onboarding;

• Launched marketing initiatives with a community newsletter, agency engagement, and recruitment of a volunteer marketing committee.

This put W.IN on a solid footing to serve its full range of beneficiaries and activate around the theory of change.

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