Scrum Master at MiWay Insurance Limited

What will you do?

• The purpose of our development department
• To deliver working software, that adds business value, daily.
• Agile values and principles are strongly embedded in our culture, and they are at the core of how we make decisions and how we approach adding value within the company.

The department is grouped into various teams that handle various sections of the business. The teams are self-organising and given autonomy to decide how best they add value to the projects and the company. We also have a flat structure in place which means that we are all equally responsible for the role our department plays and how we add value to the business. Even though some individuals are asked to take on more or alternative responsibilities, as the need arises, we do not promote classic titles like “team lead” or “team manager(s)”.

The flat-structure fuelled with autonomy over purpose creates a fast-paced environment where a big part of the culture is being able to problem solve using whatever information and tools are available at the time. Although we support learning and celebrate failures, we prefer individuals who are self-driven and nothing in our department is “someone else’s problem”.

In line with an agile principle, we take our level of technical excellence seriously. We place a vast amount of emphasis on coding standards and quality and strictly adhere to them. All our code is reviewed by the whole department to promote knowledge sharing. Our testers are empowered to make the final decisions on whether acceptance criteria are met. Regression and automation testing are critical in being able to deploy multiple times a week. 

Teams are not built around individual superstars. Even though we require team members to have adequate working experience and a healthy attitude towards growing skills and participating in our industry; we would prefer individuals who are more team orientated and who would be comfortable participating in our own cultural and environmental growth activities.

The expertise we require for the position:

• At least 2 years of working experience in fulfilling a Scrum Master role for one or more software development teams - within an active Agile environment (applying the Agile mindset).
• A valid, active, and renewable Scrum Master certification (CSM or PSM for example)

You responsibilities will involve:

• Coaching 2-3 mature projects teams on Agile values and practices.
• Assisting self-organising project teams to remove impediments.
• Facilitating the flow of work without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work while promoting cross-functionality.
• Supporting Product Owners, especially on refining and maintaining the product backlog and their relationships with Stakeholders.
• Support teams through servant leadership-styled approaches and leading by example.
• Guide/coach/mentor the development team to take on the responsibilities of the process and the ownership of the product
• Ticket & issue management with Jira (and other Atlassian products); this includes general administration of boards and managing/updating tickets with sessions like backlog grooming and standup.
• Release-Plan and Roadmap coordination with versions/releases, release notes, feedback to stakeholders on, metrics, feature deployment and alignment with project (Epic level) expectations.
• Facilitating a value-adding (business value) conversation and approach to prioritisation to ensure alignment with greater organisational needs.
• Continuously develop your expertise by actively seeking and incorporating feedback, and following external trends and best practices.
• Contribute to the knowledge building of the entire team by actively sharing insights and success stories.
• Continuously research and share insights into world standards and best practices.
• Assisting in maintaining a positive work environment.

What will make you successful in this role?

• At least 3 years of working experience in software development teams.
• Knowledge or experience with frameworks such as SCRUM, KANBAN, or XP.
• Skills and knowledge of servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, increasing transparency, and creative thinking.
• A “toolbox” of techniques and processes ready to fill the gaps left in the Scrum approach (example: various reporting strategies, retrospective formats, etc.).
• Knowledge of using ticketing tools, such as JIRA or Trello.
• Comfortable and able to facilitate teams and sessions remotely.
• A friendly, transparent, and driven attitude.
• A valid work permit for South Africa if you are not a South African citizen.

Knowledge and Skills

• Knowledge of scrum principles
• Product development process knowledge
• Agile methodology
• Sprint methodology and project management
• Reporting and Administration

Personal Attributes

• Action orientated - Contributing independently
• Decision quality - Contributing independently
• Optimises work processes - Contributing independently
• Plans and aligns - Contributing independently

Closing Date: 30th, April 2022