Agile Coach-Dorchester, MA

Agile Coach

This is a contract role that may have the opportunity to move into a fulltime position. Location: Onsite (hybrid work model). Interview Process: 2 rounds.

The Agile Coach will contribute to the implementation of the Agile Framework and Methodology approved while contributing to the improvement of the maturity and scaling of Agile according to the Bank's strategy. This includes behaviors, practices, ceremonies, use of tools, artifacts and deliverables, to achieve the goals committed to stakeholders. As an experienced Agile Coach, you will help to incrementally improve our agile capabilities. This position will be coaching the Agile team members and stakeholders, to help maximize their potential both at the team level, as well as individually within their role.

Role/Responsibilities:

• Facilitates and supports the Agile initiatives ensuring alignment with Agile practices.
• Facilitates the deployment of the Agile transformation plan, including supporting the communication, training and coaching the organization according to the defined roadmap and guidelines.
• Supports and coaches the Agile Team members, enabling key roles such as Product Managers, Product Owners and Scrum Masters to increase their maturity in their Agile journey.
• Guides and trains the teams and the organization on how to apply Agile's values and practices.
• Assesses and measures the agile maturity of the Agile Team and the Organization. Coaches the teams and the organization to achieve higher levels of maturity, according to the Bank's defined goals and roadmap.
• Assists teams and the organization in the identification of impediments and obstacles. Guides teams and the organization on how to overcome them.
• Fosters a problem solving environment at team level and at organization level, supporting the Agile Deployment strategy.
• Helps the Agile Teams, facilitating Epic and user stories grooming with prioritization, planning and product design techniques.
• Enables continuous improvement on agile deployment.
• Facilitates knowledge sharing among different agile teams and across the organization.
• Improves transparency of progress and outcome, supporting internal and external communication, including reporting team progress and accomplishment. Facilitates and supports in the status updates, product demos and retrospectives.
• Facilitates and guides discussions, leading to decision-making, goal setting and conflict resolution.
• Promotes individual's autonomy in their respective roles and supports them in their learning path.
• Participates actively in Santander's Agile community.
• Ensures that Agile ceremonies both at team level and at scale level, according to the defined practices.
• Coaches people and teams to promote and instill Agile values and principles.
• Supports the creation and maintenance of appropriate vehicles for open communication within the Agile teams and with stakeholders, creating a trusting and safe team environment.
• Complies fully with all Bank policies and procedures as well as all regulatory requirements.

Must-Have:

• Minimum 5 years of Agile Coaching implementation in a regulated business, preferably in financial services.
• Minimum of 5 years of Scrum Master experience, with in-depth knowledge of various Scrum frameworks.
• Minimum of 5 years of expertise in the implementation of Agile frameworks (including Scrum and SAFe) and how they can be applied in a regulated business, of those being 2+ years with scaling frameworks.
• Minimum 5+ years of experience in coaching and enabling agile team members.
• Proven experience within a complex organizational and IT environment with senior stakeholders, and within significant and constant change.

Skills and Knowledge:

• Knowledge and expertise in various agile frameworks and implementation of Agile Methodologies and how to apply to multiple teams in large-scale enterprise change projects & programs.
• Highly collaborative, excellent interpersonal skills and able to work with diverse personality types.
• Familiarity with modern software engineering techniques such as Continuous Integration, build, deliver, test-driven development and other automated acceptance testing techniques.
• Continuous coaching of the team and stakeholders around the team to realize their highest potential.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills.
• Ability to influence at all levels without straight line authority.
• Ability to work effectively in a rapidly changing, fluid and dynamic environment.
• Highly customer-focused approach. Demonstrable focus on delivering brilliant customer experiences.
• Ability to facilitate ceremonies like epic and user stories grooming, sizing, product backlog prioritization and refinement, sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, retrospectives, release and deploy, scrum of scums, PI planning and QBR, among others.
• Motivate and enable the agile team members to be autonomous in their goal achievements and in their roles.
• Proficiency with Agile Management Tools, including the Atlassian Suite (Jira, Confluence, etc.)
• Banking or financial industry experience preferred.
• Agile Coach training and certification.
• Scrum master training and certification a plus.
• Project Management experience and PMP certification a plus.
• Product Management experience a plus.
• Coaching and supporting distributed Agile team is plus (different geographic locations).