Scrum Master (12 Month Contract) at Old Mutual South Africa

Lead the feature/software development team to deliver incremental value applying agile principles and practices. Manage deployment of IT/Software/Infrastructure solutions. Create self-organising team that are flexible and productive.

Critical objectives and responsibilities

Facilitate agile/Scrum/SAFe ceremonies within feature team and as part of broader delivery programme.

• Facilitate his team for better creativity and tries to improve the efficiency of the feature team.
• Work with the team and assist product owner to refine the product backlogs and make them ready for the next sprint.
• Ensure visibility of work of the team using appropriate tools.
• Organise and facilitate the sprint/iteration planning meeting with the team.
• Facilitate work estimation and ensure support the team in owning the “how” with product owner and other stakeholders informing the “what”.
• Work with team to arrange daily stand-up meetings, facilitate meetings, schedule meetings, demonstrations and decision-making processes in order to ensure quick inspection and proper use of adaptation process.
• Arrange and conduct retrospective meetings in spirit of continuous improvement.
• Host showcases and feedback sessions with stakeholders to obtain feedback, ensure alignment and allow team to adjust where required.
• Implement and utilise metrics and dashboards for tracking team delivery performance.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration within the feature team and with other teams and stakeholders.
• Prepare and participate in programme-level events such as integrated planning sessions.

Promote quality delivery of incremental value

• Work with the team to execute the backlog as per priority of product owner.
• Work with the product owner to ensure that prioritised work is substantiated with expected benefits and value and that delivery of the solution incorporates/promotes tracking of value.
• Ensure observance of DoD (Definition of done) .
• Increase team efficiency, motivate team and advocate for changes that will ensure quality and timeliness.
• Foster agile engineering practices such as continuous integration (CI) to reduce development time and improve the architecture and quality of the product.
• Enable flow of work and minimise work in progress.
• Work with the team to identify and manage risks and dependencies.
• Ensure that deployments and release into production are planned and executed with relevant change controls to manage risk.

Drive culture change towards agility and servant leadership within team and across broader delivery organisation.

• Coach and guide the team and organisation on how to use Agile/Scrum/SAFe practices and values to delight customers.
• Coach and guide the team on self-organising to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks.
• Assess the agile maturity of the team and organisation and coach the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organisation.
• Remove impediments and/or guide the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impediment.
• Support and educate the Product Owner, especially on grooming and maintaining the product backlog.

Continuous improvement to ensure effective service

• Ensure statutory and legislative knowledge is always current in order to resolve customer complaints, to advise the business on corrective solutions to mitigate risks and to improve the customer experience whilst complying with governance requirements.
• Ensure adherence to organisational policies, practices and procedures.
• Identify solutions to enhance cost effectiveness and increase operational efficiency.

Service delivery to ensure customer satisfaction

• Maintain service, quality and desired outputs across the business process by ensuring compliance to tactical policies, procedures and standards.
• Establish productive operational relationships with key stakeholders in the various channels and administrative teams.
• Develop work routines in line with operational plans / schedules in order to manage achievement of service delivery goals.
• Share knowledge on, and participate in the creation of new standards, control systems and procedures to maintain service delivery.

Ensure cost efficiency through financial and corporate governance

• Contribute to the development and implementation of fit for purpose capacity and costing models.
• Manage third party supplier relationships and delivery aligned to agreed commercial and service agreements as applicable.

Manage quality people practices

• Align own behaviour with the organisation culture and values.
• Share and transfer product, process and systems knowledge to colleagues.
• Collaborate and work with wider business teams to deliver required service levels.
• Actively share information with other team members regarding successes, issues, trends and ideas.

Experience, Knowledge & Skills Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Commerce or Information Systems.
• 5 – 8 years’ experience in project/software delivery.
• Familiarity and experience in Agile/Scrum/Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
• Certification as a Scrum Master, Certified SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master or Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) or Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) desirable.
• Knowledge of Kanban/Lean desirable.
• Knowledge and experience in using tracking and collaboration tools such as Jira.
• Knowledge and experience with typically used Agile techniques such as User Stories, ATDD, TDD, etc.