Sr. Scrum Master

Western National is in search of talent looking to join a team where they can make a difference. As the Relationship Company, Western National strives to provide best-in-class service to its Agency Partners and Policyholders while promoting a culture of work/life balance to its employees.

In this critical servant-leadership role, you will help cross-functional teams deliver technology solutions promoting the company’s strategic goals. You will use your prior project management knowledge balanced with your Agile and Scrum experience to lead teams that that will build out and mature our next generation network operations and infrastructure systems, helping create enhanced customer experience journeys. If you are a seasoned technology project management professional who has migrated from the waterfall world to becoming Agile and maturing as a Scrum Master, Western welcomes you.

If you are interested in joining a company that has grown year-over-year, please review experience needs and requirements below and apply if you believe you are a fit!

• Coaching team to higher levels of maturity and empowerment at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organization, providing support to the team using a servant leadership style and leading by example.
• Understand key business objectives and strategy of the product and help communicate to the team in partnership with the Product Owner, partnering with Product Owner to support and lead business case development through governance.
• Facilitate and educate team and Product Owner on Scrum events and artifacts, and meetings inclusive of story mapping, release planning, and demos.
• Foster and coach the team for adoption of Agile tools and practices, facilitating team prioritization of improvements and introduction of process changes.
• Guide cross-functional teams in executing the principles of the Scrum framework and working with non-Scrum team(s) to ensure successful sprint execution, assessing the Scrum maturity of the team and organization.
• Schedule prioritized work in sprints within Jira, considering any dependencies and ensuring Product Owner understands corresponding logical or technical order needed to best execute the sprint and to achieve the sprint goal.
• Remove impediments blocking team from achieving sprint goal, facilitating resolution or remediation action plan creation by engaging appropriate Stakeholders.
• Facilitate project/team risk event identification, mitigation, and impact minimization, supporting approved actions and workaround implementation.
• Serve as the liaison with other product teams and Scrum Masters including shared services (i.e. integration, BI analytics and repository, security, document/workflow management) to coordinate and provide schedule visibility of work dependencies.
• Establish, track, and maintain relevant product team metrics demonstrating the value of Agile practices, and providing visibility into progress, delivery throughput, and quality of product.
• Create, monitor, and report outward and upward as applicable project plans and schedules, acting as a liaison between technical and customer teams while managing changes to the project scope, schedule, and costs using appropriate verification and change control techniques to keep the plans accurate and updated.
• Pro-actively manage the variable capacity budget, supporting the Product Owner in securing resources and funding, and facilitating subsequent IT sourcing and team onboarding activities.
• Coordinate and facilitate any communication needed outside of the team with Product Owner and other Stakeholders, inclusive of implementation and system outages, to manage customer and business expectations.

• 4+ Years of Scrum Master experience working in an Agile environment managing product and demonstrating coordination of development, user experience design, and stakeholders, with previous Agile Coaching or Product Owner experience a plus.
• 2+ years of increasingly progressive responsibility in project or program management experience leading infrastructure projects with cross functional systems and applications teams.
• Working knowledge of various delivery methodologies (Waterfall, Iterative, Agile).
• Knowledge of continuous integration and continuous delivery practices (DevOps).
• An excellent communicator with strong conflict resolution, negotiation, leadership, and mentoring skills, with ability to gain the respect of the team, internal and external stakeholders, and leadership.
• Demonstrated ability understanding and bridging business needs and executing on business strategy by leveraging ability to understand technical approach, and driving collaborative discussions to promote impactful customer outcomes.
• Experience with managing projects requiring new server, remediation, upgrade installations, middleware, and LAN/WAN and storage technologies. This includes facilitating gathering of server requirements, acquisition of hardware and software, server installation and customization, and customer hand off.
• Demonstrated experience with On-Premise and Cloud strategies (AWS, Azure).
• Previous experience working in technical system environments leveraging Agile tools (Atlassian Jira and Confluence).
• Influential leadership skills on a product team without direct supervisor responsibility.
• Ability to facilitate getting the work done without coercion, assigning or dictating, instead guiding the product team on self-organization and being an agent for change.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science or equivalent work experience.
• First level Scrum Master certification with second level Scrum Master certification preferred, with Product Owner Certification desirable but not required.
• Project Management Professional certification helpful but not required.

Western National Insurance is a growing, A+ rated (A.M. Best) group of property-and-casualty insurance companies serving individuals, families, and businesses in 20 states across the Midwestern and Western U.S. plus Alaska. Currently ranked as the 57th largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has consistently earned accolades as an employer of choice, including as a Star Tribune Top Workplace (2011 – 2016), and previously as a recipient of the Minnesota Business Ethics Award, as a Minnesota Business Magazine Top 100 Workplace, as a Principal Financial “10 Best” Company, and as a finalist for the Alfred P. Sloan “When Work Works” Award.

Western National is known as “The Relationship Company®”, and caring for employees is a key part of that relationship commitment. Western National offers competitive pay, advancement opportunities, a generous benefits package, a robust wellbeing program, and a healthy work/life balance (including three weeks of paid time off, nine paid holidays, and eight hours of paid volunteer time as a starting point for new employees). These attributes are just some of the reasons why nearly half of our employees choose to stay on the Western National team for 10 years or more.

• 401(k) company match
• Medical insurance – We offer affordable (thanks to a strong employer subsidy), above-average coverage and the choice of either a traditional Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) option OR a High-Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) option
• Western Wellbeing program – Including on-site massage, yoga classes, healthy snack days, sit/stand workstations, nutrition seminars, and more
• 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved, job-relevant coursework
• Discounts on automobile and homeowner’s insurance
• Other standard employee benefits – Including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more

• “Excellent company which prioritizes customer service and community service.”
• “Just a great place to come to work, and stay for a career. I love the personal touch from [the] executive suite on down. [The] CEO is on a first-name basis with everyone.”
• “Above-average benefits, especially on the health insurance front.”
• “I have felt welcomed here and I feel like the Senior Management cares.”