Agile delivery lead (scrum master)

Position Summary:

The Agile Delivery Lead helps build high performing software and infrastructure teams to deliver high-value products, platform components and projects using Agile development methodologies. The Agile Delivery Lead role combines the responsibilities of a scrum facilitator, an organizational leader, and a developer of team capacities. Your mission is to both protect teams and hold them accountable, by ensuring the psychological health of their members while ensuring delivery and quality. As a member of each team’s triumvirate, you will serve alongside the Product Owner and Technical Lead on one or more development teams, shepherding the team’s development, implementing continuous improvement in process and communication, and educating the team in Lean and Agile methodology, practices, and values.

Position Responsibilities:

Team Development

Develop a strong, self-sustaining team with rich and comprehensive software development practices around communication, estimation, planning, prioritization, and delivery. Nurture team health by demonstrating vulnerability in leadership, holding team members accountable for their actions, and ensuring a structured process is used to capture and share feedback within and outside the team. Maintain an open and transparent set of facilitation practices for clear communication of backlog, workload, throughput, and velocity, with clear metrics on delivery and milestones. Assess skills across team members based on the competency matrix of their discipline, performing gap analysis relative to workload and team responsibilities.

Facilitation

Facilitate team meetings, including daily stand-up, sprint planning, demos, and retrospectives. Support the Product Owner and/or Platform Lead in their efforts to facilitate a healthy team dynamic around scope and prioritization. Support the Technical Lead in their efforts to build iteratively with good technical decision-making and the acknowledgment of trade-offs to avoid or accept technical debt. Provide checks and balances between getting more done and maintaining high quality and efficiency. Support the Team by removing impediments that prevent them from delivering work. Ensure transparency into the team’s work through the sprint backlog, burndown chart and other metrics.

Portfolio Management

Coordinate multiple teams towards on-time delivery of committed work. Work with Product and Platform leads to perform 90-day scenario and major release plans, contingency plans, and resource forecasts. Manage inter- and intra-team prioritization based on software and project dependencies. Utilize project management skills including, as applicable, preparing project plans, meeting agendas, meeting follow-up and decision documentation. Keep stakeholders informed on status of projects, accomplishments, and issues in a timely fashion, while developing action plans to resolve delays or problems and meet deadlines. Work with team leads to design, build, and launch a Team Maturity model to facilitate the meta-development of execution capacity across the Technology team. Adopt a phased implementation for enhancing technical competencies, communication, platform, culture, systems/capabilities, process, curiosity, ownership and management through training, coaching, education, and regular events.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

5+ years of experience in Agile facilitation and project management. 5-7 years of experience working in a multi-team, cross-functional, platform environment. Strong facilitation and collaboration skills. Strong preference for candidates with a mix of start-up and/or growth-stage experience. Strong preference for candidates with experience in organizational change management. Any experience supporting Salesforce development teams is a plus. You have a track record of facilitation in building high-quality teams. Ability to consistently and actively coach teams to greater health and performance. Proven ability to get things done in cross-functional implementation. Proven ability to work effectively in fast-paced, ever-changing, growth-stage organizations. Ability to inspire, motivate by example, and manage change across the organization. Knowledge in Lean and Agile methodology, with pragmatism and adaptability. Proven skills in stakeholder management, strategic prioritization, consensus, and evangelism. Demonstrated willingness to play at multiple levels: strategic, managerial, and executional. Superior visual, verbal, and textual communication, presentation, and storytelling skills.