How a SCOPEinsight assessor became a temporary Administrative Operations Officer
In 2015, Ariane Merci Isimbi began working as an assessor for SCOPEinsight. Ever since her first assessment, she knew this was a job she could be passionate about. “Farmers think no one thinks about them,” she told me in our interview. “When you visit, they know you care.”
With a degree in agriculture from the National University of Rwanda, Ariane understands the importance of farmers. She also understands the importance of SCOPEinsight’s assessment tools. The tools, she explained, help farmers figure out their needs and understand the problems they face. This can help even before they start looking into how those problems can be solved. Once the farmers understand what they need to become more professional, they are more prepared for the trainings that follow.
Ariane also sees the assessment process itself as a learning session for farmers. Sometimes, farmers do not understand why a question is important. It may be a new method of farming, or it may be something that had simply never occurred to them before. Either way, the assessment process can help farmers gain a more professional mindset. While farmers may not always understand the tools at first, they can understand their importance when a good assessor explains it to them.
And Ariane is most certainly a good assessor. From 2015 to 2020, she completed nearly a hundred assessments. She has been working as an independent assessor for five years, and she has worked with many clients in multiple countries. When asked about her favorite stories from her time as an assessor, she laughed and said sometimes cooperatives would ask her to come back when they thought they had improved. If a different assessor did the reassessments for these cooperatives, she said some would call her up and compare her to the new assessor. “He wasn’t like you,” they would say. Ariane said these calls were always flattering and nice to get.
Performing the assessments is a big responsibility, Ariane admitted. The farmers put a great deal of trust in her, and they expect big results. Some farmers even think she will help implement the training after the assessment. While that is not part of Ariane’s job, she always wants to help the farmers and be worthy of the trust they put in her. Knowing the problems of farmers and letting them express themselves is good, she said. If you visit them, they are willing to share.
In December of 2020, Ariane began working as a quality controller for SCOPEinsight, checking over the data logged by other assessors and flagging potential errors. She fully knew and understood the tools and the questions, and she wished to grow within SCOPEinsight. She found another opportunity for growth recently, when a temporary position opened up in operations. Our Operations and Customer Success Manager at SCOPEinsight is going on maternity leave, and it was necessary to find someone to cover for her while she was gone. We knew we had a reliable and knowledgeable assessor and quality controller in Ariane, and that her unique position and experience made her the best suited candidate. She understands the assessors’ challenges, which is a valuable trait for the position. Ariane took the offer, and now she is working as the Administrative Operations Officer.
Working as an assessor, a quality controller, and an operations officer are all very different, Ariane explained. Working as an assessor requires more travel and going out to visit the farmers face-to-face, while quality control and operations are both done behind a screen. Quality control requires a lot of attention to detail, while working in operations requires a lot of communication skills. All three jobs are very different, but Ariane loves it all. “This is my job,” she told me with a smile. “This is my work. This is work I can always do.”
Are you interested in working with an incredible assessor like Ariane? Contact us today to see how our SCOPEinsight assessments can help you.
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