Agile Coach

Description

Certifications are critical here. Hiring Manager wants someone with SAFe certification or at least SAFe training. Should also have CSM at the minimum. As an Agile Coach, you will be engaged with programs that are transforming from a traditional software delivery model to an agile delivery model, or a program that is looking to mature in their agile adoption. The scope of transformation ranges from individual teams to large programs/ portfolios that cross multiple delivery teams and business segments. This is a unique role where your passion, enthusiasm, and enjoyment in customer facing coaching will be highly valued. The Agile Coach will be responsible for leading the agile transformation of one or more value streams (Release Trains) to support the delivery of strategic technology products. Critical to your success is coaching the Release Train Engineer (RTE), which is a hybrid role that properly balances agile leadership and program management to help software development teams build and deliver solutions more efficiently. This role will heavily leverage the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to drive agile delivery within the release train. This position requires individuals who have previously been successful RTE's, Scrum Masters and/or Agile Coaches on highly distributed teams, have led Agile/Scrum adoption in the past, and have experience in software delivery as well as those who can drive and influence change and effectively communicate with all levels of the organization. As the ideal candidate you are not only experienced in agile methods, but have an extensive track record of delivering high quality systems and products. You enjoy close collaboration with delivery team members to ensure compliance with out enterprise delivery method. You will also be responsible for advancing the standard enterprise methods, practices and tools as needs emerge, as well as assisting with the identification of changes to the enterprise policies and standard to support agile software delivery. DevOps coaching or engineering experience a must as well. Experience with ATDD and setting up a CI/CD pipeline is required. Primary Responsibilities Act as an Agile Coach, concentrating on developing Execution leaders (RTE and Scrum Masters) and closely partnering with the Product Manager & IT Delivery Owner to guide one agile release train Establish program level cadence and drive program level ceremonies (e.g. PI Planning, Product Management Council, Scrum of Scrums, release train retrospectives, HIP Sprint) Work with other program leaders to drive the definition and refinement of the program backlog Provide leadership, direction, and coaching to the agile program and scrum teams Ensure crossvalue stream coordination and collaboration Serve as an escalation for impediment removal for the Scrum Masters and scrum teams Maintain metrics that provide visibility to stakeholders on programlevel plans, progress and quality Facilitate alignment dependencies between the program team and third parties, release managers, or between the team and other Scrum Teams Foster a team collaborative environment that tears down silos between groups, act in a single voice Actively contribute to the companys Agile and Lean Community through participation in the internal Agile Community of Practice, Agile Coach, RTE and Scrum Master Forums Develop, coach, and mentor team members to advance their skills and career Provide real time feedback to the methodology team based on experiences with software delivery teams Work cross functionally to align strategy, methodology and execution Be a change agent and foster a learn by doing environment Act as a mentor to Agile Team Coaches, RTE's, Scrum Masters and Product Owners Requirements 8+ years of IT experience 4+ years of experience in an Agile delivery environment 3+ years of experience as a Scrum Master, Product Owner or Agile Coach 3+ years Project Management experience 2+ years of leading people from an HR perspective 2+ years of experience working on large scale, multiple scrum team projects 2+ years of experience working on mixed methodology program (Scrum interfacing with Waterfall from a dependency perspective) SAFe Program Consultant (SPC4) Certification and relevant work experience Bachelor's Degree in an IT related field Experience with Agile Planning Tools, preferably Rally Communicative and social Must be able to clearly interact with teams Facilitative Must be able to lead and demonstrate valueadd principles to a team Assertive Must be able to ensure Agile/Scrum concepts and principles are adhered to, must be able to be a voice of reason and authority, make the tough calls. Situational Awareness Must be the first to notice differences and issues as they arise and elevate them to management Enthusiastic Must be highenergy Continual improvement Must continually be growing ones craft learning new tools and techniques to manage oneself and a team Attitude of empowerment Must be able to lead a team to selforganization Attitude of transparency Must desire to bring disclosure and transparency to the business about development and grow business trust Quick learner Must be able to quickly gain a high level understanding of the technical and business domains of the Scrum teams Ability to coach others in basic fundamentals of software development processes and procedures Ability to coach others in backlog refinement, burndown metrics, velocity, and task definition Ability to coach others in incremental delivery and the value of metrics Excellent English communication skills in written and spoken form Assets Agile / Scrum Industry Certification(s) SAFe Certification(s) Project Management Industry Certification(s) Healthcare experience Understanding of other processes and methodologies and can speak intelligently about them and leverage other techniques to provide value to a team/enterprise Understanding of the value of commitments to delivery made by a development team Familiarity with common Agile practices, serviceoriented environments, and better development practices Participation in industry agile communities