Job Description
Position Overview:
A Scrum Master acts as a servant leader as part of a highly collaborative Agile Practice team. This role will advise, mentor, coach and train the organization against agile values, practices and processes to deliver value through maturing organizational agile practices. A Scrum Master will act as a team facilitator, keeping the teams focused on Affinity Plus’s mission to continuously improve by leading teams with transparency, inspection and adaption.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Facilitate and coordinate all of the agile ceremonies and oversee the building of the agile team’s backlog to ensure the team keeps moving forward in a self-organizing way
- Examine and drive team performance through metrics and identify opportunities for the team to fully realize the benefits of working in an agile structure
- Work with service and development teams, stakeholders, other Scrum Masters and leaders to foster a organizational culture that supports respect, focus, courage, openness and commitment
- Define and lead agile practices that improve and advance agile understanding
- Coach product owners to ensure the value of the product is maximized through the results of the Scrum Team
- Assist product owners by finding techniques for effective Product Goal definition and Product Backlog management
Service to teams:
- Coach teams in agile practices in order to become cross-functional and self-organizing
- Coach and mentor other employees and business leaders in supporting agile teams
- Remove impediments that interfere with team’s progress
- Ensure that all scrum events take place and are positive, productive and psychologically safe
- Help teams establish practices that enhance quality, lowers technical debt and increases product value
- Assist the Scrum Team in communicating to product owners the need for clear and concise product backlog items
Service to Product Owners:
- Ensure goals, scope and product domain are understood by everyone on the team and in the organization
- Collaborate with product owners to establish thoughtful product planning fin a complex environment
- Guide the product owner on arranging the product backlog to maximize value
- Facilitate stakeholder collaboration
- Coach product owner on how to use agile best practices, values, and practicing agility
- Collaborate with the Scrum Team to establish a strong focus on the Product Goal, Sprint Goals and the Definition of Done
Service to organization:
- Lead, train, and coach the organization in its agile and scrum adoption
- Raise awareness of impediments and facilitate the removal in a mission to continuously improve
- Facilitate events as requested
- Lead and coach the organization in scrum and other agile methodologies
- Initiate change that fosters a continuous support environment
- Work with other organizational leaders to create an environment that increases productivity, product value and quality
- Work with other Scrum Masters to increase effectiveness of scrum and agile throughout the organization
- Identify and remove barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams
- Other duties as assigned
Qualifications and Skills:
- 2+ years in a scrum master experience
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
- Possess a servant leadership management style
- Strong training, mentoring and coaching skills
- Strong facilitation skills to opening hard conversations, guiding thorough inspection and exploring options to change
- Good knowledge and understanding of other agile methodologies (such as Kanban, LeSS, etc.)
- Excellent communication skills
- Basic business acumen skills to engage business leaders
- Strong analytical and decision making skills required with a high degree of accuracy
- Aptitude to work independently as well as part of a team and ability to collaborate with others
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Time Management skills and the ability to prioritize workload based on department and member needs
- Flexibility to adapt and succeed in a dynamic environment
Preferred Skills
- Experience in applying a wide variety of well-known agile practices and techniques (such as User Stories, Story Pointing, Estimation, etc.)
- Other Agile certifications (such as CSPO, CSD, TKP)
Workplace Environment:
- Working in a stationary position for 98% of the work day Utilizing the telephone or video conferencing 20-25% of the day
- Repetitive movements, including but not limited to typing, using a mouse, phones, etc.
- Requires onsite presence based on coordination of work with other employees and/or departments.
- May require travel to attend on-site meetings/events for collaboration, connection, project work, All-Employee Day, etc.
Required Work Schedule:
Standard Monday through Friday business hours with a willingness to work a flexible schedule as needed. Consistent and reliable attendance is a required essential function of this role to meet the needs of the department/team and organization.
This position will be mostly remote with occasional required meetings on-site in St. Paul, MN or the surrounding area.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities
The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)