Scrum Master

Job Title: Scrum Master

Position Overview:

We are seeking a seasoned and versatile Scrum Master who combines technical expertise with exceptional coaching and facilitation skills. As a Scrum Master, you will work at the intersection of leadership, team dynamics, and technical practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This position combines the core responsibilities of a Scrum Master with advanced technical coaching, identifying areas where teams need support and actively collaborating with them to implement solutions, while embodying Agile principles and best practices. Additionally, this role serves as a key liaison to the process and compliance team, ensuring alignment between organizational processes and team execution.

Key Responsibilities:2. Requirements Management3. Facilitating Scrum Events

• Technical Practices Coaching Promote and enable Agile development practices, including:
• Simple Design: Empower teams to create simple, maintainable designs by providing guidance and fostering a mindset of clarity and simplicity
• Refactoring: Support teams in improving code structure and readability by encouraging regular review and incremental enhancements
• Unit Testing: Facilitate robust unit testing practices by helping teams adopt effective testing strategies and tools
• Test-Driven Development (TDD): Enable teams to embrace TDD by providing training, resources, and encouragement to embed it into their workflows to enhance code quality and reduce defects
• Product Backlog Organization: Guide Product Owners in maintaining a well-organized and prioritized product backlog
• Stakeholder Communication: Coach Product Owners on effective communication strategies with stakeholders
• User Story Writing: Assist Product Owners in writing clear, actionable user stories aligned with team capabilities and objectives
• Agile Collaboration: Support Product Owners in aligning Agile practices and principles with collaboration efforts
  
  

Facilitate and coach teams to maximize the value of Scrum events, ensuring the team leads the way:

• Sprint Planning: Support the team in setting clear goals and defining a sprint backlog, ensuring the session remains collaborative and team-driven
• Daily Stand-ups: Encourage productive, focused, and time-boxed stand-ups by guiding the team in fostering open communication and accountability
• Sprint Reviews: Enable the team to lead meaningful reviews that showcase their work and gather valuable stakeholder feedback
• Sprint Retrospectives: Coach the team to identify actionable insights for continuous improvement, allowing them to own and drive process enhancements
• Backlog Refinement: Assist in maintaining an updated and prioritized backlog, ensuring the team is equipped to take ownership of their planning
  
  

4. Organization Responsibilities

• Identifying Skill Gaps: Assess team skillsets and identify areas for development to meet product development goals
• Encourage Skill Development: Promote the use of the company’s skill tree to foster growth as multi-skilled developers by tracking progress, identifying opportunities for upskilling, and encouraging individuals to expand their expertise across various technical domains
• Team Restructuring: Reorganize team composition as necessary to ensure a high-functioning team, such as balancing technical expertise, cross-functional collaboration, and alignment with project objectives. Examples include teams that demonstrate efficient decision-making, consistent delivery of high-quality results, and effective problem-solving in dynamic environments
• Community of Practice (CoP) Participation: Engage with the Scrum Master Community of Practice for shared learning and problem-solving
• Executive Liaison: Serve as an advocate and representative for the team, ensuring their perspectives and needs are effectively communicated to stakeholders. Ensure that organizational changes do not disrupt the team’s cohesion or conflict with team implementation strategies
  
  

5. Additional Responsibilities

• Scalable Agile Framework Experience: Demonstrate expertise in scaling Agile practices across teams and departments, utilizing frameworks like SAFe, LeSS, or other methodologies to align Agile efforts with enterprise objectives. Leverage a LeSS-friendly approach while maintaining flexibility to work on contracts requiring SAFe expertise
• Agile and CMMI Process Development: Collaborate with the organization’s process group to design, implement, and continuously improve processes that align Agile practices with CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) requirements. Serve as a bridge between Agile teams and the process group, ensuring that processes are practical, scalable and foster continuous improvement. Provide guidance on integrating Agile methods into CMMI-compliant workflows, including defining clear roles, responsibilities, and performance metrics
• Process Audits: Assist in evaluating team processes, identifying improvement areas, and providing actionable feedback. Facilitate observable moments across different teams to gather insights on Agile practices and team dynamics. Ensure process quality assurance (Process QA) by reviewing workflows, identifying inconsistencies, and recommending adjustments to align with Agile principles and CMMI requirements
• Conflict Resolution: Mediate team conflicts and foster a collaborative environment where challenges are addressed constructively. Encourage open communication and mutual respect to ensure team harmony and productivity
• Metrics and Reporting: Foster team accountability and improvement by utilizing Agile metrics (e.g., velocity, cycle time, burn-down charts) to generate actionable insights. Use these metrics to enhance collaboration, identify inefficiencies, and drive meaningful improvements, creating a shared understanding of team performance and goals
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Facilitate effective collaboration between teams and stakeholders, ensuring that organizational goals, expectations, and deliverables are clearly aligned. Act as a mediator to address potential misalignments and maintain strong communication channels
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Foster alignment and coordination across multiple Agile teams, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in scaled Agile environments. Promote practices that encourage teams to share knowledge, synchronize efforts, and address dependencies proactively
• Change Management: Partner with the SAG (Strategic Advisory Group) to effectively implement organizational changes. Provide coaching and guidance to teams during transitions, ensuring changes are embraced and seamlessly integrated into existing workflows
• Agile Tooling Expertise: Provide guidance to teams on managing and optimizing workflows, automating processes, and implementing team dashboards using tools like Azure DevOps or Jira. Ensure tools are effectively utilized to support transparency, collaboration, and efficiency
  
  

Qualifications:

• Communication and Interpersonal Skills: Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills to engage effectively with diverse stakeholders, ensuring alignment and mutual understanding
• Facilitation Skills: Excellent facilitation, coaching, and mentoring skills to enable teams and individuals to achieve their full potential
• Agile Coaching Expertise: Experience in coaching teams on Agile principles, technical practices, and team dynamics, fostering a collaborative and high-performing environment
• Leadership Experience: Proven experience in a leadership role within Agile environments (e.g., Scrum Master, Team Coach, Agile Leader, etc.)
• Technical Practices Knowledge: Background in software development and technical practices. While deep technical expertise is not required, the candidate should have the ability to identify the right resources and subject-matter experts to address technical challenges effectively
• DevOps Understanding: Knowledge of DevOps pipelines, coding standards, and modern technology stacks. The candidate does not need to be a hands-on developer but must possess sufficient technical knowledge to guide teams and seek support from appropriate experts
• Organizational Alignment: Ability to manage and align with organizational priorities, foster cross-team collaboration, and drive continuous improvement initiatives
  
  

Preferred Qualifications:

• Agile Tool Experience: Hands-on experience with Agile tools like Azure DevOps, Jira, or similar platforms to support effective Agile workflows and team management
• Architectural Standards Familiarity: Familiarity with architectural standards and practices in software development, enabling informed discussions with technical teams and stakeholders
• Certifications: Certifications such as Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Professional Scrum Product Owner, Certified LeSS Practitioner, and Certified LeSS Basics (from a LeSS trainer) are highly desirable
  
  

This is a remote work position.

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