·       Strongly serving and supporting the Product Owner and Development Team

·       Providing all support to the team using a servant leadership style and leading by example.

·       Guiding and Coaching the Scrum Team and organization on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values

·       Guiding and Coaching both the Scrum Team and the Development team on how to get the most out of self-organization

·       Assessing the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organization

·       Removing impediments or guiding the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impediment.

·       Building a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis of healing and problem solving.

·       Facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work.

·       Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution

·       Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information

·       Supporting and educating the Product Owner(s), especially with respect to refining (aka grooming) and managing the product backlog.

·       Organise and facilitate sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, daily stand-ups, release planning, product showcases and other scrum related meetings.

·       Facilitate sprint retrospective meetings, creating an environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution or judgement, with an emphasis on problem solving and improvement.

·       Facilitating discussions, decision making, and conflict resolution and ensuring clear communication between all members of the Scrum team.

·       Identify and manage risks early identification and management of issues and delays.

·       Recommend improvements and assist in changes to best practice.

·       Track and communicate team velocity and sprint/release progress.

·       Manage multiple scrum teams.

·       Facilitating SCRUM events for the team. This includes:

·       Helping the team to make decisions.

·       Continuing learning regarding everything Agile (e.g. visit user groups, attend conferences, read books, write blogs, etc.).

·       Encouraging the use of Agile Engineering Practices within the development team (this is huge field to spend a Scrum Master’s time in, including e.g. one click releases, continuous delivery, feature flags, and many more).

·       Challenge team with Agile management innovations (e.g. FedEx-Days).

·       Exchanging constantly with other Scrum masters in the organisation (e.g. through community of practice).

·       Helping the team to get rid of impediments.

·       Suggesting new metrics for the team as catalysts for change.

·       Reflecting Agile and Scrum values to the team.

Requirements

·       Scrum Master certification

·       Experience playing the Scrum Master role for at least two years for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory. 

·       Knowledge and/or experience with widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games 

·       Familiarity with modern software engineering techniques such as Continuous integration, build, deliver, test-driven development and other automated acceptance testing techniques

·       Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team 

·       Experience applying a wide variety of well documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach(example: numerous Burndown techniques, numerous Retrospective formats, handling bugs,etc) 

·       Previous Project Management or Development Team Lead experience  

·       Excellent communication and mentoring skills 

·       Excellent presentation and facilitation, coaching and mentorship skills

·       Ability to effectively coach multiple teams with varying degree of complexity and time lines

·       Organise and facilitate sprint planning, daily scrum meetings, retrospectives, release planning, demos, and other related meetings

·       Oversee project estimations, the development and tracking of integrated project plans and the development of project deliverables in order to meet project objectives

·       Champion and embody the Scrum way-of-life across the development teams

·       A proven track record in software project delivery at an enterprise level in an agile environment.

·       Understand and know how to use standard project management tools and techniques to schedule, plan and track project and team performance.

·       A deep understanding of investment and life products

·       A deep understanding of South African Investment Platforms and platform operations.

·       An understanding of financial sector regulation as it relates to investment platforms.