Hydra Scrum Master- HFS

Scrum Master

Northern Trust Job Description

SUMMARY

The Scrum Master facilitates the planning, delivery and continuous improvement of Agile teams. This role requires significant practical experience and techniques, as well as knowledge of continuously evolving Agile industry best practices. The Scrum Master collaborates with team members across both Business and Technology, providing mentoring and coaching on Agile principles and practices. In addition, he/she is a servant leader who enables team success by removing impediments and making good teams great by implementing effective ways of working that foster continuous improvement and collaboration.

The role involves working for Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services, a global middle office provider and fund administrator, specializing in complex hedge funds and alternative asset investments. The role will be supporting the investor accounting and reporting software development teams for our Omnium® technology platform. This role will also play a leadership role in coaching and developing broader Agile capabilities across our business and technology teams.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Create empowered, self-organizing, high-performing teams by serving as the team’s servant leader

a. Mentor the team and the product owner on Scrum and Agile best practices

b. Continuously improve team productivity

c. Educate the team, product owner and stakeholders on the business value of engineering practices, and promote the use of engineering practices to provide faster delivery, better quality, and fewer defects

d. Build an environment of trust and manage conflict in a healthy way

e. Create transparency and mentor the team on how this accelerates agility

f. Facilitate the completion of the work without applying pressure on the team or assigning work

g. Facilitate open, fact-based discussion and decision making

h. Lead by example

i. In collaboration with the team and product owner, regularly assess the Agile maturity of the team, identify improvement opportunities, and implement the improvements at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and the organization

j. Coach the team on the value and methods of developing cross-functional skills

2. Facilitate planning

a. Coach the product owner on creating and maintaining a continuously prioritized Product Backlog of stories with clear acceptance criteria and high-level estimates

b. In collaboration with the team, facilitate the creation of team agreements which minimally include a Definition of Done (DOD) and a Definition of Ready (DOR)

c. Facilitate Release Planning

3. Facilitate delivery

a. In collaboration with the team, identify and mitigate risks, issues and dependencies internal and external to the team

b. Remove impediments that prevent the team from delivering work and continuously improving

c. Facilitate sprint execution including

i. Elaboration sessions

ii. Sprint planning preparation sessions

iii. Sprint planning

iv. Daily stand-ups

v. Coaching the team

vi. In collaboration with the product owner, modifying the Release Plan as new information emerges throughout the sprints; communicating the latest version of the Release Plan at every sprint boundary, at a minimum, and ensuring stakeholders are aware of the updates to the Release Plan and any impact to their requests

vii. Sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives

4. Other responsibilities

a. Time box events to effectively manage the team’s and stakeholders’ time

b. Create information radiators that automatically and continuously share pertinent information with the team and stakeholders

c. Increase transparency and aid in internal and external communication and alignment

d. Understand the differences between Scrum Masters and Project Managers and be able to collaborate effectively on teams with a Project Manager

e. Stay current with the Agile industry: Read and recommend valuable Lean and Agile books, blogs, articles, etc. to continuously increase the team’s Agile maturity; coach the team on developing a culture of continuous learning and improvement

f. Coach and develop broader Agile capabilities across our business and technology teams.

g. Planning and coordinating QA and UAT testing for feature roll out and delivery.

h. Develop and prepare Sprint reports at project level plus consolidated platform level management reports

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS

1. Advanced understanding of software development methodologies and fundamentals (Agile, SCRUM, Kanban, Lean, Waterfall, etc.)

2. Advanced interpersonal skills – able to establish strong working relationships and promote bi-directional communication within and across teams and programs

3. Knowledge and experience with Agile techniques such as Continuous Integration, automated testing, test-first approaches such as TDD, ATDD, etc., pairing, Agile games, etc.

4. Skilled in facilitation, continuous improvement, empowerment, transparency, building trust and servant leadership

5. Able to organize, moderate and demonstrate Agile industry best practices

6. Strong leadership and organizational skills with excellent written and verbal communication, time management, and individual and team building skills

7. Experience with developing and executing plans, meeting deadlines, and coordinating timelines and efforts

8. Ability to apply advanced principles, theories and experiences, and contribute to the development of innovative ideas and practices

9. Ability to effectively facilitate discussions at various levels and suggest alternative approaches

10. Ability to effectively manage challenging situations through negotiation and conflict resolution

11. Understanding of all facets of the software development life cycle including planning, development, quality assurance, change management and release management

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED