IT Scrum Master Global Grade 13 at Barloworld Equipment

Key Outputs

Core purpose of the role

• The IT Scrum Master is the agile team role responsible for ensuring the team lives agile values and principles and follows the agreed upon organisational processes and practices. The responsibilities of this role includes clearing obstacles to the delivery of value-adding products to the division through the establishment of an environment where the team can be effective. The IT Scrum Master is the channel between business owners, product owners and development/delivery teams as a project manager and must therefore maintain a high-level view to help teams understand both organisational and technical dependencies while avoiding delays. This creates a culture of accountability and enables teams to meet critical deadlines.

Key deliverables and outputs

• Delivers project conception, analysis, scope and parameters and managed each project’s scope and timeline.
• Coordinates sprints, retrospective meetings and daily stand-ups
• Ensures deliverables are up to quality standards at the end of each sprint
• Provides all support to the team using a servant leadership style whenever possible and leading by example.
• Guides the team and organisation on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values to delight customers and implement changes effectively.
• Guides the team on how to get the most out of self-organisation and helps build a productive environment where team members ‘own’ the product and enjoy working on it
• Guides the team on self-organising to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks.
• Assesses the Scrum Maturity of the team and coaches the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team.
• Removes impediments or guides the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impediment.
• Builds a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis on healing and problem-solving.
• Facilitates getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work.
• Facilitates discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution.
• Assists with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information and acts as single point of contact for all external communications.
• Supports and educates the Product Owner, especially on grooming and maintaining the product backlog, as well as new requests.

Internal customers

• All business groups in the organisation; End-users; Team members

External stakeholders

• External clients at all levels
• System developers, integration partners, solution provider

Qualification, Experience and Competencies

Academic qualifications
Essential:

• Degree in Computer Science / Information Systems
• Three years of SAP ERP Experience in at least one functional area.

Advantageous:

• Certificate / Diploma in Business Analysis or Project Management
• IT Scrum Master-related certification
• Post graduate degree

Work experience
Essential:

• Seven to 10 years as a Business Analyst, Project Manager or Delivery Lead
• Experience in playing the Scrum Master role for at least 1 year for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory.

Knowledge
Essential: Skills
Essential:

• Detailed knowledge of agile delivery methods.
• Strong knowledge of project management.
• Understanding of DevSecOps concepts and practices.
• Knowledge of various well-documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach (example: numerous Burndown technologies, various Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.)
• Good understanding of ITIL

Advantageous:

• Knowledge of other Agile approaches: XP, Kanban, Crystal, FDD, etc.
• Awareness and experience with widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games.
• Good skills of servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, mentorship and increasing transparency.
• Strong communication skills with an ability to understand key concepts and communicate effectively with technical staff, business stakeholders and senior management.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to nontechnical people to enhance understanding and drive decisions that lead to positive outcomes.
• Ability to collaborate, build relationships and influence individuals at all levels in a matrix-management environment (as well as external vendors and service providers) to ensure that segregation and overlapping roles are identified and coordinated.
• Strong organisational skills, the ability to perform under pressure and management of multiple priorities with competing demands for resources.
• Strong analytical, data-processing and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency in process formulation and improvement

Personal Attributes

Essential:

• Passion for optimising business performance
• Focus on innovating and continuous improvement
• Focus on analysing and solving problems
• Concern for communicating clearly
• Appreciation for challenging others with respect
• Remain resilient under stress and pressure
• Strong inclination for change agility
• Commitment to maintaining business awareness
• High EQ

Advantageous:

• Customer centricity and focus
• Orientation towards growing and nurturing relationships
• Readiness to make and own decisions
• Enthusiasm for learning, growing and sharing
• Preference for thinking practically
• Preference for planning and organising
• Perseverance