Agile Coach/Scrum Master

Serves as a leader within one or more Agile product teams to deliver high value solutions that contribute to the success of our business and technology initiatives in an agile environment.

• Serving and supporting the Product Owner and Development Team in their quest to do everything possible to predictably deliver high quality value to customers
• Experience with User Story review, splitting, and sizing. Knows what a ‘good’ story is.
• Providing support to the team using a servant leadership style and leading by example. This person should personify Agility (Flexibility, Learning, Business, Organizational).
• Guiding and Coaching the Scrum Team and organization on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values while also meeting delivery commitment.
• Guiding and Coaching both the Scrum Team and the Development team on how to get the most out of self-organization.
• Guiding and Coaching both the Scrum Team and the Development team on self-organizing to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks
• Assessing the Agile Maturity of the team and organization; coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organization
• Removing impediments or guiding the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impediment.
• Building a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis of healing and problem solving.
• Facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work.
• Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution
• Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information
• Supporting and educating the Product Owner, especially with respect to refining and managing the product backlog

QUALIFICATIONS/ REQUIRED SKILLS

• Experience as Scrum Master for multiple Scrum teams, simultaneously.
• Experience being on multiple Scrum teams in a variety of different contexts (different team sizes, different organizations, different cultures, co-located vs. distributed, etc.)
• Demonstrated experience assisting a historically waterfall team and organization with adopting appropriate Agile constructs (i.e. Scrum and Kanban).
• Knowledge and/or experience with widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games
• Experience applying a wide variety of well documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in an Agile approach (example: numerous Burndown techniques, numerous Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.)
• Working knowledge of Agile tools (e.g. Rally/Agile Central, JIRA, etc.)
• Demonstrated skills and working knowledge of servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, problem solving, conflict resolution, communications, continual improvement, empowerment, mentoring, and increasing transparency
• Knowledge of numerous well documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach (example: numerous Burndown techniques, numerous retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.)
• The ability to distinguish between what is and isn’t agile, what is and isn’t Scrum, etc.

DESIRED SKILLS

• Business and technology product/scrum team experience
• Knowledge of scaled agile frameworks
• Track record of continued and recent education, as a presenter and learner, in Agile constructs, including training, conferences, user groups, self-study, etc.
• Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in STEM-related discipline
• Three or more years’ experience as a Scrum Master
• Highly Desired: First level Scrum Master certification (CSM), or equivalent