Applications & Network Scrum Master

Methods Business and Digital Technology Limited

Methods is a £100M+ IT Services Consultancy who has partnered with a range of central government departments and agencies to transform the way the public sector operates in the UK. Established over 30 years ago and UK-based, we apply our skills in transformation, delivery, and collaboration from across the Methods Group, to create end-to-end business and technical solutions that are people-centred, safe, and designed for the future.

Our human touch sets us apart from other consultancies, system integrators and software houses - with people, technology, and data at the heart of who we are, we believe in creating value and sustainability through everything we do for our clients, staff, communities, and the planet.

We support our clients in the success of their projects while working collaboratively to share skill sets and solve problems. At Methods we have fun while working hard; we are not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them.

Predominantly focused on the public-sector, Methods is now building a significant private sector client portfolio.

Methods was acquired by the Alten Group in early 2022.

About the role

We are looking for an experienced Applications & Network Scrum Master to join a major transformation programme and enable effective agile delivery across our applications and network squads.

This is a hands-on delivery role focused on creating the environment in which multidisciplinary technical teams can perform at their best. You will bring structure, transparency and momentum to delivery, helping teams maintain clear priorities, manage dependencies, remove blockers and deliver against agreed migration outcomes.

You will work closely with Product Owners, Technical Leads, Architects, Engineers, Project Managers and wider programme teams to ensure that application and network delivery remains aligned with the programme roadmap and migration waves.

The role will sit at the heart of delivery, connecting the day-to-day activity of the squads with the wider programme. You will help teams balance agile ways of working with the realities of a complex, governed transformation programme, including fixed milestones, technical dependencies, testing requirements and cutover activity.

We are looking for someone who can facilitate effectively without becoming overly process-driven; someone who can coach teams towards greater ownership and predictability while also providing constructive challenge when commitments, dependencies or delivery risks need to be addressed.

What you will do

As the Applications & Network Scrum Master, you will support one or more multidisciplinary squads and help establish a consistent, effective approach to agile delivery.

You will:

• Facilitate sprint planning, daily coordination, sprint reviews, retrospectives, backlog refinement and other agreed agile ceremonies.
• Ensure ceremonies are purposeful, inclusive and focused on achieving clear delivery outcomes rather than simply following process.
• Work with Product Owners and Technical Leads to maintain prioritised, refined, ready and outcome-focused backlogs.
• Help teams break down complex technical and migration activity into achievable increments that can be planned, delivered and demonstrated.
• Track delivery flow, sprint commitments, blockers, risks, dependencies and emerging issues across application and network workstreams.
• Identify impediments early and work with the appropriate teams to remove or escalate them before they impact delivery.
• Coordinate dependencies and interfaces with identity, infrastructure, security, testing, cutover, change and other programme teams.
• Maintain visibility of cross-squad dependencies and ensure actions and decisions are clearly owned and followed through.
• Support realistic sprint and release planning, ensuring commitments are based on team capacity, technical readiness and known dependencies.
• Encourage clear acceptance criteria, definition of ready and definition of done so that teams understand what successful delivery looks like.
• Maintain clear visibility of progress against migration waves, key milestones and programme outcomes.
• Provide timely escalation of delivery risks, blockers and dependencies where they cannot be resolved within the squad.
• Use appropriate agile metrics and delivery data to understand flow, predictability, capacity, throughput and emerging delivery trends.
• Use team feedback, retrospectives and delivery evidence to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Coach squads in agile principles and behaviours, encouraging ownership, collaboration, transparency and continuous learning.
• Help protect delivery teams from unnecessary disruption while ensuring that programme-level commitments and governance requirements remain visible and understood.
• Work with Project Managers and Programme Leads to ensure agile delivery integrates effectively with wider programme planning, governance and reporting.
• Support the coordination of technical and operational readiness activities leading into migration and cutover events.
• Help ensure lessons learned from each delivery or migration wave are captured and used to improve subsequent waves.

The delivery environment

This is not a pure software-development Scrum role. You will be operating within a complex technology transformation, where applications, networks, infrastructure, identity, security and operational teams need to work together to deliver migration outcomes.

The squads may therefore contain a mixture of technical disciplines, and delivery will often involve dependencies that sit outside the immediate team's control.

You will need to be comfortable working in an environment where priorities can change, technical issues can emerge unexpectedly and delivery is governed by wider programme milestones.

The ability to distinguish between a genuine blocker and a problem that the team can solve themselves will be important. Equally, you will need the confidence to challenge unrealistic commitments, unclear requirements or unmanaged dependencies and ensure that issues are surfaced early rather than becoming late-stage surprises.

The successful candidate will help create a culture where progress is visible, commitments are realistic, blockers are actively managed and teams continuously improve.

Skills and experience required

We are looking for an experienced Scrum Master or Agile Delivery professional with a strong track record of working with multidisciplinary technical teams.

You will ideally have:

• Proven experience as a Scrum Master, Agile Delivery Lead or equivalent, supporting technical delivery teams.
• Strong practical experience facilitating agile ceremonies including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, reviews, retrospectives and backlog refinement.
• Demonstrable experience supporting and coaching teams to improve their agile maturity, ownership and delivery effectiveness.
• Strong backlog-management skills, with the ability to work effectively with Product Owners and Technical Leads to establish clear priorities and delivery outcomes.
• Strong experience managing dependencies, blockers, risks, actions and impediments across multiple teams.
• Experience working within a governed programme environment where agile teams are working towards fixed migration milestones or business deadlines.
• Practical understanding of how agile delivery operates alongside programme governance, project management, architecture, change and operational processes.
• Experience working with applications, networks, cloud, infrastructure or other enterprise technology delivery is strongly desirable.
• The ability to understand enough technical context to facilitate effectively and identify when an issue requires specialist intervention or escalation.
• Experience working with architects, engineers, developers, infrastructure specialists, security teams, Product Owners, Project Managers and customer stakeholders.
• Confidence using common agile planning, collaboration and reporting tools.
• Experience using delivery metrics to identify trends, improve predictability and support evidence-based conversations about delivery.

What we are looking for in you

You will be an excellent facilitator and communicator who can bring people together around a common outcome.

You will be comfortable asking difficult questions and providing constructive challenge without creating unnecessary friction. You will know when to coach, when to facilitate, when to intervene and when to escalate.

You will have the emotional intelligence to work effectively with different personalities, disciplines and levels of seniority, creating an environment where people feel able to raise issues and challenge assumptions.

You will also be highly organised and comfortable working across multiple workstreams. You will naturally look beyond the immediate sprint to understand how dependencies, risks and decisions could affect the wider migration programme.

Most importantly, you will be focused on outcomes rather than ceremonies. Agile processes are important, but your measure of success will be whether teams are becoming more predictable, dependencies are being managed effectively and the programme is successfully delivering its migration objectives.

Location : Hybrid London - the role will be based in London hybrid 50/50 - At the beginning there will be more time onsite than remote and then it will become hybrid.

Methods is passionate about its people; we want our colleagues to develop the things they are good at and enjoy.

By joining us you can expect:

·        Autonomy to develop and grow your skills and experience

·        Be part of exciting project work that is making a difference in society

·        Strong, inspiring, and thought-provoking leadership

·        A supportive and collaborative environment

As well as this we offer:

Development – access to LinkedIn Learning, a management development programme, and training

Wellness – 24/7 confidential employee assistance programme

Flexible Working – including home working and part time

Social – office parties, breakfast Tuesdays, monthly pizza Thursdays, Thirsty Thursdays, and commitment to charitable causes

Time Off – 25 days of annual leave a year, plus bank holidays, with the option to buy 5 extra days each year

Volunteering – 2 paid days per year to volunteer in our local communities or within a charity organisation

Pension – Salary Exchange Scheme with 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution

Life Assurance – of 4 times base salary

Private Medical Insurance – which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included)

Worldwide Travel Insurance – which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included)

Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Pay

Travel – season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme

For a full list of benefits please visit our website (www.methods.co.uk/careers/benefits)