Scrum Master

Job Title: Scrum Master

Location: Memphis, TN

Job Description:

Works with and coaches teams with the planning, managing, and delivery of capabilities and associated deliverables in support of organizational objectives. Lead teams in using agile methodologies including Scrum to improve team effectiveness.

Facilitate iteration (sprint) planning, lead work within individual sprints, and coordinate retrospectives and demos. Assist key business users (product owners) with backlog creation and prioritization.

Ensure cross-functional team coordination (GUI designers, analysts, developers, and testers). Lead daily sprint stand-ups and resolve conflict. Maintain and publish Agile metrics (e.g. velocity and burn-down).

Coach, mentor, and evangelize Agile best practices across the organization. Manage project external dependencies by working with outside teams.

Strategically work complex issues where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation of variable factors. Includes planning, plan creation, and ongoing management, execution and implementation.

Coaches activities to maintain progress, mutual interaction, and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of failure, maximizes benefits, and minimizes costs. Builds, develops, and grows business relationships with stakeholders at multiple levels and multiple locations. Maintains continuous alignment with defined strategic business objectives. Coaches, mentors, motivates and coordinates project team members and contractors, and influences them to take positive action and maintain accountability for their assigned work.

COMPETENCIES & SKILLS:

1. Facilitates teams as assigned. Includes working with management to involve other resources as appropriate. Negotiates sprint timelines and scope diplomatically, and maintains composure and production quality under deadline pressure. Manages teams through to completion through multiple sprint cycles with minimal direction.

2. Assists in the management of sprint backlog with Product Owner to manage the execution of work. Proactively identifies changes in the scope of work, ensuring appropriate planning measures are taken with internal and external clients to reassess, renegotiate and amend the scope of work within sprints. Updates sprint and product backlogs as necessary.

3. Foster and Coach the team for the adoption of Agile tools and practices. Drive high throughput of the scrum team by identifying, preventing and eliminating potential issues and roadblocks across partner teams and products.

4. Creates and provides agile-based reports and assists the team using tools and software for management of tasks and project teams within an agile (SCRUM) framework. Familiar with tools supporting the agile software development lifecycle (Jira, Quality Center, Rally, Pivotal, GreenHopper, MS Project, MS Office, etc). Leads all aspects of the project including initiation, planning, monitoring, implementation, and closing. Uses critical path methodology and change management skills to manage assigned projects.

5. Builds and maintains positive relationships with partner departments by providing timely support; actively seeks solutions to address process or challenges. Ensures completion of deliverables and adherence to timelines; tracks milestones and timelines across projects and institutes necessary workflow, mobilizes appropriate resources and analyzes issues that have potential to jeopardize performance and/or ability to meet agreed upon deliverables timelines.

6. Ensures that work is properly logged in the appropriate software and updates are made in a timely manner.

7. Performs other various job functions as may be assigned.

8. Performs job duties as assigned as part of ALSACs Business Continuity Management Program, including annual maintenance and testing of business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency response plans.