Scrum Master

Job Description

The Digital & Data team is a dynamic division within Old Mutual, which seeks to drive digital engagement with customers by being at the forefront of digital development and innovation. Old Mutual’s longstanding history and unquestionable success in the financial industry, provide a solid foundation for expansion of its digital platform. The Digital & Data team applies customer-focused design thinking, agile and lean development methodologies, and continuous delivery practices.

This role of Scrum Master, will lead a team of IT resources, including analysts, developers and QA testers. The incumbent will work in a multi-functional team to ensure continuous delivery of quality solutions.

Key Result Areas:

• Deliver software development projects using Agile, specifally SAFe development methodology
• Organize and facilitate project planning, daily stand-up meetings, reviews, retrospectives, sprint and release planning and demos
• Ensure agile processes are followed and work with the teams to help them adopt the process that works best for the team
• Ensure project teams are practising the core principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility
• Update agile tracking systems to provide transparency on Product & Sprint Backlogs.
• Recommend improvements and assist in changes to best practice
• Support the business outcome owners and delivery teams as necessary
• Assist with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information
• Assist team with making appropriate commitments through story selection, task definition
• Identify and remove impediments, prevent distractions that interfere with the ability of the team to deliver the sprint goal
• Facilitate discussion and conflict resolution
• Empower the teams to self-organize
• Improve the productivity of the teams in any way possible
• Adapt delivery plans, schedules, and resource assignments as required throughout projects to respond to emerging requirements and risks
• Stakeholder management
• Risk and issue identification and management
• Dependency management
• Communication to the team and outside of the team
• Alignment with other customer projects and initiatives
• Provide progress updates to relevant stakeholders

ROLE QUALIFICATIONS

• Matric certificate
• Relevant tertiary qualification.
• 10 yrs of IT experience
• Good understanding of business IT
• Very strong technical background either as a Business Analyst, Software Developer, Quality Analyst or Project Manager
• Involved with all aspects of software delivery and life cycle, from inception phase to UAT and delivery
• Experienced Scrum Master and leading teams who deliver successful enterprise software development projects
• Successfully applied Agile/Scrum/SAFe practices, introduced Agile techniques and have coached teams to apply them effectively
• Proficient in managing scope in an Agile project and facilitating the user story lifecycle in close collaboration with the customer/Business Outcome Owner, including breaking down complex requirements into independent user stories, capturing detailed acceptance criteria, building a release plan with user, managing the backlog, running showcases
• Ideally, experienced in running distributed teams and distributed agile
• Exceptional listening, written and verbal communication skills including exceptional client facing/consulting skills
• Will have your own opinions about how to build great software and be prepared to defend them