Agile Coach

Job Description

Digital & Mobile Product Development encompasses the Product Development Planning & Delivery, Application Services & Architecture, Product Development, and QA functions. Product Development Planning & Delivery works hand-in-hand with Product and Technology leads to efficiently plan, execute, and deliver on its product roadmap, including driving greater alignment between the product roadmap and development using Agile practices.

Within Product Development Planning & Delivery, the Product Development Planning & Portfolio Management team plays a critical role chartered with:
•    Driving and supporting ongoing alignment across Product, technology and supporting partner teams through effective planning, definition, and monitoring of the target product development scope for each Market Release, from kick-off through delivery.
•    Ensuring Digital & Mobile product development scope and broad range of product development projects and processes are effectively planned, aligned for delivery, monitored, and reported across multiple development organizations employing both Agile/Scrum and waterfall development methodologies.
•    Owning the development, continued improvement, and training for the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) and end-to-end planning and delivery process. The team facilitates, socializes, implements, inspects and adapts a “continuous,” adaptive, multi-level, and Agile product planning and scope definition process in collaboration for each market release with Product Strategy, Product Development, and other technology and business partners.
•    Supporting Product portfolio/program governance, producing release and program progress reporting, providing business relationship management, and leading end-to-end process definition and improvement activities.
•    Implementing, improving, and administering the organization’s Product Development strategy, planning and execution tools, including its implementation and support of Rally, its new Agile Application Lifecycle Management tool, and its existing tools, including Confluence Wiki and JIRA.
•    Defining the recommended Scaled Agile Process, Framework and Best Practices, and ensuring process governance via ongoing training, coaching and mentorship across all programs and teams.

Position summary:
Reporting to the Director of Agile Practices, the Agile Coach is responsible for teaching and reinforcing Agile processes, best practices and guidelines at the team level. He/she works directly with Scrum teams, Product Owners, Developers and Testers to increase team-level productivity and efficiency by establishing a shared understanding of the Scaled Agile Process as it is defined and documented for the Digital & Mobile Product Development organization. The Agile Coach also plays a significant role in supporting process governance, driving improvements at the team level, and reinforcing best practices and guidelines for Rally, our Agile Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) tool.

Responsibilities:
The Agile Coach is passionate about Agile, communication and group dynamics. He/she knows how to work with a team of skilled engineers in a very fast-moving environment, and is able to drive change and Agile transformation at the team level. The Agile Coach will remove process-related impediments, and help improve Agile adoption across the organization.
•    Provide consultation, guidance, and support to teams to ensure alignment and a shared understanding of the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC), Agile best practices, and the roles Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Developers and Testers play on each team.
•    Provide on-site training for basic Agile Principles, Scrum and Kanban to help standardize the Agile process across all teams and programs within Digital & Mobile Product Development, and reinforce best practices and guidelines at all times.
•    Facilitate continuous learning through workshops and team-building activities.
•    Serve as process consultant to Scrum teams and individuals by helping them understand our Scaled Agile framework and processes, and increase their productivity and efficiency through continuous improvement and learning.
•    Coach all Scrum teams, Product Owners, and Developers and Testers on a daily basis. Help them understand their roles and responsibilities at the team level, and resolve all process-related questions/conflicts that arise during planning and execution.
•    Continuously improve team-level Sprint ceremonies, processes, and practices for planning, executing, tracking, and reporting to ensure all Sprint and Release goals are achieved in a timely manner.
•    Create autonomous, self-organizing, empowered and continuously improving teams
•    Guide team members with understanding the capabilities of Rally and help meet our planning, execution and reporting needs, as well as performing a wide variety of trouble-shooting and problem-solving activities.
•    Build and maintain effective working relationships with counterparts in other business and technology organizations to ensure our program deliverables align with broader Technology & Operations organization and its business and technology programs.

Qualifications

•    10-12 years progressively more responsible experience in directly relevant roles such as Program Manager, Project Manager, Business Analyst, Architect, Developer, Test Engineer and/or Technology Strategist.
•    5+ years of experience as an Agile Program Manager, Product Owner and/or Scrum Master (including a minimum of 2 years as a hands-on Scrum Master)
•    2 years of experience as a hands-on Agile Coach working directly with multiple Scrum Teams
•    2 years of experience as an Agile/Scrum Trainer teaching basic Agile/Scrum principles and best practices in a classroom-setting
•    2 years of experience using Agile collaboration tools such as Rally, Version One, JIRA/Green-hopper, etc.
•    Process-oriented with a strong passion for Agile
•    Detail-oriented, focused and goal-driven
•    Friendly and a good people-person (soft-skills is a must)
•    Thinks outside the box and is willing to explore new ideas
•    Problem-solver with solid negotiation and conflict resolution skills
•    Outstanding written communication, analytical and problem-solving skills.
•    Proficient at facilitating large-scale meetings with mixed audiences and driving next steps
•    Ability to create reports, dashboards and presentations and metrics in visually compelling ways.
•    Ability to synthesize information from multiple sources and distill it in crisp, clear language appropriate for all types of audiences.
•    Willing to work in challenging environments with a flexible approach towards Agile (willing to work within the guidelines and constraints of the scaled Agile process)
•    Flexible and willing to adjust working hours (some teams are located in Bangalore and Singapore)-- Experience working as a hands-on, embedded Coach who knows how to increase Agile adoption and collaboration at the team level
•    Experience working with both engineering/technical teams and product/business teams that are transitioning from Waterfall to Scrum (not just mature Agile teams)
•    Solid understanding of the Software/Product Development Lifecycle (SDLC/PDLC) and program and project management techniques, methodologies and best practices.
•    Relevant experience in the development and management of products in the digital, mobile, online, ecommerce, payments technology and processing, and/or financial industry space is a PLUS.

Additional Information

To know more on this position or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Aditi Dube

aditi.dube(at)collabera.com

415-696-5354