The Scrum Master facilitates the planning, delivery and continuous improvement of Agile teams. This role requires significant practical experience and techniques, as well as knowledge of continuously evolving Agile industry best practices. The Scrum Master collaborates with team members across both Business and Technology, providing mentoring and coaching on Agile principles and practices. In addition, he/she is a servant leader who enables team success by removing impediments and making good teams great by implementing effective ways of working that foster continuous improvement and collaboration.

RESPONSIBILITIES

* Create empowered, self-organizing, high-performing teams by serving as the team's servant leader

* Mentor the team and the Product Owner on Scrum and Agile best practices

* Continuously improve team productivity

* Educate the team, Product Owner and stakeholders on the business value of engineering practices, and promote the use of engineering practices to provide faster delivery, better quality, and fewer defects

* Build an environment of trust and manage conflict in a healthy way

* Create transparency and mentor the team on how this accelerates agility

* Facilitate the completion of the work without applying pressure on the team or assigning work

* Facilitate open, fact-based discussion and decision making

* Lead by example

* In collaboration with the team and Product Owner, regularly assess the Agile maturity of the team, identify improvement opportunities, and implement the improvements at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and the organization

* Coach the team on the value and methods of developing cross-functional skills

* Facilitate planning

* Coach the Product Owner on creating and maintaining a continuously prioritized Product Backlog of stories with clear acceptance criteria and high-level estimates

* In collaboration with the team, facilitate the creation of team agreements which minimally include a Definition of Done (DOD) and a Definition of Ready (DOR)

* Facilitate Release Planning 

* Ensure the Product Owner has shared and explained the Release Plan goal(s) to the team

* Ensure the Product Owner has a Product Backlog populated with sufficient stories with acceptance criteria and high-level estimates to meet the release goal(s)

* Facilitate the team's planning stories in all sprints in the Release Plan up to the team's capacity

* Obtain stakeholder feedback on the release plan prior to approval

* Obtain approval on the Release Plan

* Communicate the approved Release Plan to all stakeholders

* Facilitate delivery 

* In collaboration with the team, identify and mitigate risks, issues and dependencies internal and external to the team

* Remove impediments that prevent the team from delivering work and continuously improving

* Facilitate sprint execution including

*Elaboration sessions

* Sprint planning preparation sessions

* Sprint planning

* Daily stand-ups

* Coaching the team on

* Creating small stories with thin slices of end-to-end functionality

* The value and use of relative estimation 

* Executing Design/Build/Test activities daily 

* Testing early and often during each sprint; not leaving testing until the end of the sprint

* Incorporating engineering practices

* Completing committed stories in the sprint 

* Completing Potentially Shippable Increments (PSI) in each sprint

* Correctly and effectively using velocity for planning

* In collaboration with the Product Owner, management and stakeholders, modifying the Release Plan as new information emerges throughout the sprints; communicating the latest version of the Release Plan at every sprint boundary, at a minimum, and ensuring stakeholders are aware of the updates to the Release Plan and any impact to their requests

* Sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives

Other responsibilities

* Time box events to effectively manage the team's and stakeholders' time

* Create information radiators that automatically and continuously share pertinent information with the team and stakeholders

* Increase transparency and aid in internal and external communication and alignment

* Understand the differences between Scrum Masters and Project Managers and be able to collaborate effectively on teams with a Project Manager

* Stay current with the Agile industry: Read and recommend valuable Lean and Agile books, blogs, articles, etc. to continuously increase the team's Agile maturity; coach the team on developing a culture of continuous learning and improvement

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS

1. Intermediate to advanced understanding of software development methodologies and fundamentals (Agile, SCRUM, Kanban, Lean, Waterfall, etc.)
2. Advanced interpersonal skills - able to establish strong working relationships and promote bi-directional communication within and across teams and programs
3. Knowledge and experience with Agile techniques such as continuous integration, automated testing, test-first approaches such as TDD, ATDD, etc., pairing for various roles, Agile games, etc.
4. Skilled in facilitation, continuous improvement, empowerment, transparency, building trust and servant leadership
5. Able to organize, moderate and demonstrate Agile industry best practices

6. Strong leadership and organizational skills with excellent written and verbal communication, time management, and individual and team building skills

7. Experience with developing and executing release plans, meeting deadlines, and coordinating timelines

8. Ability to apply advanced principles, theories and experiences, and contribute to the development of innovative ideas and practices

9. Ability to effectively facilitate discussions at various levels and suggest alternative approaches
10. Ability to effectively manage challenging situations through negotiation and conflict resolution
11. Understanding of all facets of the software development life cycle including planning, development and quality assurance, change management, and release management

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

* Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience

* Minimum of 1-3 years of Agile practical usage in the role of Scrum Master; 3+ years preferred

* Experience with Agile Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools (JIRA, Rally/Agile Central, Version One, etc.) preferred

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