Scrum Master & Agile Coach

The Scrum Master Coach role for IT Division includes facilitating and teaching IT Team Leads how to effectively run Scrum events to reinforce GDOT-adopted Agile principles to manage incidents continuously and effectively to analyze and remove impediments and how to guide teams in both the Scrum and Kanban frameworks to create productivity. This hybrid role requires strong facilitation and coaching skills to help Team Leads to empower groups to self-organize use ticket tracking tools correctly reinforce processes and enhance collaboration while delivering value in alignment with IT leadership prioritization. Key responsibilities include guiding IT Team Leads in daily management of project and operational backlogs fostering continuous progress on prioritized items and teaching IT Team leads to apply both Scrum and Kanban practices with reporting to optimize workflow efficiency.

Train and support IT Team Leads in leading Scrum events such as daily stand-ups planning sprint planning reviews ticket tracking board clean-up activities and retrospectives with the intention of IT Team Leads becoming proficient. The Scrum Master/Coach will assist with ceremony refinement to promote best practices for items such as story writing and task prioritization and participation. The collaboration with the IT Team Lead will also ensure that they become organized informed project tool proficient and assess meetings to ensure relevant team members are present and informed of prioritization of their items ensure buy-in alignment and project success. The Scrum Master Coach uses their daily observations to facilitate trainings education and documentation to reinforce all incorporated best practices to ensure team accountability tracking of project/ticket progress the awareness acumen and participation of IT Team Leads.

Coach alongside IT Team Leads with the intent of demonstration and training to ensure that team members are well versed on both Scrum and Kanban principles and practices to foster self-organization and continuous improvement. Hold team leads accountable for working on items that align with IT leadership priority which includes operational team supporting developer scrum team success. Train teams to be empowered to address issue make recommendations and manage incidents as a team working toward the same goal of success and remediation.

In daily scenarios using communication and project management tools train IT Team Leads to manage incidents and to identify and remove blockers that hinder the teams progress. Identify when dependency analysis is necessary and incorporate that into a plan to handoff to GDOT IT to incorporate into their ceremonies.

Collaborate with the Technical Leads and IT Management to train on keeping and maintaining a clear prioritization-aligned and well-managed product backlog.

Facilitate continuous improvement through retrospectives and help teams implement actionable changes that are scheduled and are in a process where they will not be ignored.

Redirect IT Team Leads to adhere to the chosen Scrum framework (Sprints for developers and Kanban for infrastructure/operations) best practices including implementing and incorporating Kanbans operational functionality that creates flexibility WIP limits and the documentation of repeatable tasks that can be used to improve throughput.

Coach Sprint Teams and Kanban Teams to work collaboratively to ensure communication to work toward an eventual successful incremental deployment.

Focus on improving the teams overall effectiveness and ability to deliver high-quality products by documenting all training for IT Team Leads and best practices in a living Working Agreement for teams to refer to when there is ambiguity around team/team member roles and best practices.

Skills and qualifications (Candidate must have at least 5 years experience working with Agile Teams)

Strong knowledge of both Scrum and Kanban methodologies and their underlying principles.

Excellent facilitation coaching and mentoring skills. This includes documentation of items taught to ensure a working agreement is tracked and updated with expectations and a commitment to best practices for those being trained.

Ability to analyze identify and resolve team impediments and conflicts.

Experience in managing and prioritizing backlogs that align with IT Leadership priority.

Strong communication skills to facilitate collaboration among team members technical leads architects project managers security team and stakeholders.

Understanding of how to apply Kanbans core principles such as explicit workflow visualizing work and limiting work in progress.

Understanding of how to apply Scrum Team best practices to ensure successful daily scrums collaboration alignment risk analysis and participation for ongoing team dynamics that facilitate successful iterative deployments.

Servant leadership mindset focusing on team needs and enabling them to be self-organizing.

Proficient in Atlassian Suite (Jira Confluence) ServiceNow (ITSM and Agile Modules) MS Teams and Office365.

Agile Certifications Required (Scrum Master certified at minimum)

Skill	Required / Desired	Amount	of Experience
Experience working with Agile Teams	Required	5	Years
Proficient in Atlassian Suite (Jira Confluence) ServiceNow (ITSM and Agile Modules) MS Teams and Office365.	Required	3	Years
Agile Certifications Required (Scrum Master certified at minimum)	Required