Responsible for facilitating the planning, delivery and continuous improvement of Agile teams. Collaborates with team members across both Business and Technology, providing mentoring and coaching on Agile principles and practices. In addition, this role is a servant leader who enables team success by removing impediments and implementing effective ways of working that foster continuous improvement and collaboration. 1. Create empowered, self-organizing, high-performing teams by serving as the team's servant leader
• Mentor the team and the Product Owner on Scrum and Agile best practices
• Continuously improve team productivity and facilitate completion of work
• Educate the team, Product Owner and stakeholders on the business value of engineering practices, and promote the use of engineering practices to provide faster delivery, better quality, and fewer defects
• In collaboration with the team and Product Owner, regularly assess the Agile maturity of the team, identify improvement opportunities, and implement the improvements at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and the organization
• Coach the team on the value and methods of developing cross-functional skills2. Facilitate planning a. Coach the Product Owner on creating and maintaining a continuously prioritized Product Backlog of stories with clear acceptance criteria and high-level estimatesb. In collaboration with the team, facilitate the creation of team agreements which minimally include a Definition of Done (DOD) and a Definition of Ready (DOR)c. Facilitate regular Release Planning workshops d. Ensure updates to the plan are communicated to stakeholders3. Facilitate deliverya. In collaboration with the team, identify and mitigate risks, issues and dependencies internal and external to the team b. Remove impediments that prevent the team from delivering work and continuously improvingc. Facilitate sprint execution including elaborate planning sessions, sprint planning preparation sessions, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives. Team coaching on:I. Creating small stories with thin slices of end-to-end functionality ii. The value and use of relative estimationiii. Executing Design/Build/Test activities dailyiv. Testing early and often during each sprintv. Incorporating engineering practicesvi. Completing committed stories in the sprintvii. Completing Potentially Shippable Increments (PSI) in each sprint viii. Correctly and effectively using velocity for planning4. Time box events to effectively manage the team's and stakeholders' time. Create information radiators that automatically and continuously share pertinent information with the team and stakeholders. Increase transparency and aid in internal and external communication and alignment. Read and recommend valuable Lean and Agile books, blogs, articles, etc. to continuously increase the team's Agile maturity.5. Expertise in Agile principles and practices, with strong technical and / or business knowledge. Provides comprehensive, in-depth consulting and leadership to team and partners at a high technical level.6. Able to facilitate open, fact based discussions, build consensus and reach decisions.7. Carries out moderately complex activities and initiatives involving multiple disciplines and/or ambiguous issues.
A College or University degree and relevant proven work experience of Agile practical usage in the role of Scrum Master is required. Experience with Agile Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools (JIRA, Rally/CA Agile Central, VersionOne, etc.) preferred. Certified Scrum Professional and/or certified Scrum Master preferred. Excellent oral and written communication skills, time management and individual and team building skills. Strong interpersonal skills, able to establish strong working relationships and promote bi-directional communication within and across teams and programs.Good leadership and organizational skills, skilled in facilitation, continuous improvement, empowerment, transparency, building trust and servant leadership. Able to effectively manage challenging situations through negotiation and conflict resolution.Strong understanding of all facets of the software development life cycle including planning, development, quality assurance, change management and release management.Strong understanding of software development methodologies and fundamentals (Agile, SCRUM, Kanban, Waterfall, etc.) Strong knowledge and experience with Agile techniques such as Continuous Integration, automated testing, test-first approaches such as TDD, ATDD, etc., pairing, Agile games, etc.Able to organize, moderate and demonstrate Agile industry best practices. Experience with developing and executing plans, meeting deadlines, coordinating timelines and efforts and applying advanced principles, theories and experiences.

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