Release Train Engineer at Old Mutual South Africa

Job Description

• The RTE facilitates the success of the program through managing processes, engagements, stakeholders and execution. They solve impediments, manage risk, help facilitate value delivery, and help drive relentless improvement. 

Responsible for managing Scrum Masters in the new frameworks, processes and mindsets. 

Many also drive the change management, coaching leaders, teams.

They help embed, standardize and document best practices.
Core Duties and Responsibilities:

• Optimise the flow of value through the program by making work visible at a team and program level
• Establish and communicate the annual calendars for Program Increments (PIs)
• Facilitate PI Planning readiness by fostering a Continuous Exploration process which drives the synthesis of a Vision, a Roadmap, and Backlogs, and through Pre- and Post-PI Planning meetings
• Facilitate the PI planning event
• Summarize Team PI Objectives into Program PI Objectives (and publish them for visibility and transparency)
• Tracking the delivery of features and capabilities against agreed MVP
• Facilitate synchronization meetings, including the Core Team sync and Program Sync
• Run value stream mapping exercise at the beginning of each program to ensure correct team formation
• Where necessary Coach leaders, teams, and Scrum Masters in Agile practices and mindsets
• Help solve risks and dependencies
• Solve, escalate and track impediments
• Provide input on resourcing to address critical bottlenecks
• Encourage collaboration between teams and Solution Architect (or IT lead)
• Work with Product and Solution Management, Product Owners (BOO’s), and other stakeholders to help ensure strategy and execution alignment
• Improve and assess the DevOps and Release on Demand competency and ways of work
• Facilitate System / PI Demos
• Drive relentless improvement via Inspect and Adapt workshops (retros)
• Assess the performance of the program overall and help the members of the program improve
• Foster Communities of Practice / Chapters to ensure alignment on key areas of the program

Technical skills:

• The RTE acts as an Uber Scrum Master, thus will share many of the traits of a Scrum Master. Unlike the Scrum Master whose primary focus is on the team, the RTE will interact with various levels of the organization. To be effective, the RTE must have developed a more refined and broader understanding of how Agile (and SAFe) deliver value to the organization. 
• In depth Knowledge of agile methodology and frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile (SAFe) etc.
• Strong knowledge of Scrum theory, rules and practices and ceremonies.
• Knowledge about other methodologies other than Agile-Scrum, so that he can explain other methodologies to motivate his team if needed.
• Understand the value of team and program metrics and keep track of them to performance. Metrics could include (but not be limited to)
• Productivity. Measuring delivery against plan and against MVP.
• Quality.
• Time to market.
• Team engagement.
• Customer satisfaction.
• Ability to run and facilitate core meetings and activities: Backlog grooming, Sprint planning, story writing, sizing, prioritising, Daily stand ups, demo’s and retros.
• Stakeholder Management, Negotiation & Communication Skills
• JIRA/Confluence experience (or other relevant tools). Making work visible through various means for teams and the program.

Profile:

• Transition from directing and managing activities to acting as a servant leader. Servant leadership is a philosophy that implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work, and community spirit.
• Focus on providing the support needed by the teams to be self-organizing and self-managing.

Characteristic servant leader actions include:

• Listen and support teams in problem identification and decision-making
• Create an environment of mutual influence
• Understand and empathize with others Encourage and support the personal development of each individual and the development of teams
• Coach people with powerful questions rather than use authority
• Think beyond day-to-day activities; apply systems thinking Support the teams’ commitments
• Be open and appreciate openness in others

Other Characteristics to be successful include:

• Courageous. A great RTE has the courage to say what needs to be said in a respectful and tactful way. They respect the authority and direction of management, but have the courage to deliver the truth, even if it’s not what people want to hear.
• Facilitator. Comfortable presenting in front of the team and management. They have an arsenal of tools and techniques to keep the participants interested and engaged.
• Negotiator. Understands that most things are not black and white. There are many shades of grey, where matters must be negotiated to achieve an agreement that is palatable to all parties involved.
• Communicator. Can deliver a message with tact, being sensitive to how the message is received by the team or by management.

Depending on the person in the role, the shift in leadership approach could be highlighted by noting the shift in behaviours:

• From coordinating team activities and contributions to coaching the teams to collaborate
• From deadlines to objectives
• From driving toward specific outcomes to being invested in the program’s overall performance
• From knowing the answer to asking the teams for the answer
• From directing to letting the teams self-organize and hit their stride
• From fixing problems to helping others fix them

Minimum Qualification/ Requirements 

• 3 or 4 year bachelor degree in Computer Science or Engineering is advantageous
• SAFE or Agile Certification (Preferred)
• 6+ years of experience in a complex project and program management roles with at least with 3+ years leading Scrum teams
• Experience working in an Agile organization using Scrum, XP, Kanban, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), or other scaling model is preferred
• Ability to run and facilitate core meetings and activities: Backlog grooming, Sprint planning, story writing, sizing, prioritising, Daily stand ups, demo’s and retros.
• Stakeholder Management, Negotiation & Communication Skills
• JIRA/Confluence experience (or other relevant tools). Making work visible through various means for teams and the program.
• Strong technical aptitude and experience leading teams in delivering quality software
• Track record of delivery in an enterprise software organization

Closing Date

• 11 May 2021