Purpose

We are seeking a Scrum Advocate to join our team. Formerly known as a 'Scrum master,’ this position will help to support respect, justice, and effectiveness within a new work group applying Agile methodologies.

The Scrum Advocate for the Data to Insights (D2I) Initiative will guide and coach D2I Scrum teams on agile practices and principles to integrate and simplify university data for insightful decision-making. The Scrum Advocate will engage with stakeholders from various university academic, administrative, and student support offices and with Scrum team members with functional, analytical, and technical expertise; they also will work, as needed, with the D2I operations team and the chief strategist for D2I to steer Scrum adoption and implementation. This position calls for a servant leader and change agent who supports the initiative and the university as we establish core practices of transparency, inspection, and adaptation and uphold our core values of respect, focus, openness, commitment, and courage.

Responsibilities

Planning and Implementation

• Organize and facilitate Scrum events such as sprint and release planning, daily stand-ups, sprint demos and reviews, and sprint retrospectives.
• Work with the development team and product owner to identify techniques for effective product backlog refinement, including the curation of clear and concise backlog items, product owner communication and education, minimum viable product agreement, and product release.
• Assist the development team with making appropriate commitments through task definition, estimation, prioritization, and story selection.
• Equip and assist the Scrum team to remove impediments and shield the team from outside distractions.
• Employ holistic thinking to recognize patterns and suggest creative and iterative approaches to continuous improvement, looking for opportunities to initiate change that will increase the productivity and effectiveness of the teams.
• Perceive and appreciate cultural dynamics within and across teams and continuously adapt our implementation of Scrum strategies to maximize value.

Coaching

• Train, mentor, and support cross-functional teams of analysts, engineers, and functional experts to follow Agile values, principles, and practices, including self-organization, self-discipline, collaborative decision making, cooperative development, experimentation, and continuous learning. Encourage transparency, inspection, and adaptation. 
• Model flexibility and creativity in effectively addressing internal and external challenges.
• Provide one-on-one coaching with Scrum team members, stakeholders, and administrators. Translate Scrum and Agile nuanced language and concepts.
• Nurture a supportive environment to create and maintain psychological safety, individual empowerment, team cohesion, and morale.
• Contribute to performance management by recognizing individual strengths and growth areas, providing mentorship, and advocating for personal advancement and success.

Communication

• Function as the team’s information radiator, ensuring necessary internal and external communication and improving overall transparency.
• Discover or establish communication channels to foster collaboration amongst team members, leadership, and stakeholders.
• Serve as liaison between the business, represented by the product owner, and the development team, ensuring that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum team.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or at least 4 years of professional experience in information technology or related field.
• Agile expertise and experience coaching and guiding team members. Demonstrated knowledge of implementing incremental delivery methods, backlog tracking, producing burndown metrics, measuring velocity, and task definition.
• Understanding of fundamentals of iterative development as it pertains to moving to an Agile methodology.
• Strong skills in organization and prioritization and ability to foster team self-organization.
• Demonstrated high-energy and motivational skills, including the ability to facilitate discussion and communicate well with teams, advocating for making sure all team members have an opportunity to speak up and encouraging alternatives and divergent thinking.
• Ability to recognize and address behaviors that are counterproductive to the team dynamic and meeting sprint objectives and effectively mediate peer disputes and interpersonal or working style differences.
• Demonstrated insight and initiative to ensure effective implementation of Agile/scrum principles and practices and to engage peers and leadership when help is needed.
• Ability to bring disclosure and transparency to the organization and enhance trust.
• Understanding of other project management processes and methodologies and fundamentals of software development.
• Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience as an Agile project manager or team lead in a data management or business intelligence context.
• Experience as an IT project manager or team lead in a large, enterprise environment.
• Experience with administering Jira.
• Experience driving or coaching DevOps best practices such as CI/CD and test-first approaches (TDD, BDD, Shift-left).
• Experience working in in higher education.
• Experience implementing Agile in highly regulated or matrixed organizations.
• Agile certification such as CSM, PSM or DASM.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Salary

$76,284 + depending on qualifications

Working Conditions

• Typical office environment
• Repetitive use of a keyboard
• Occasional extended work hours or on-call obligation
• Location up to 100% remote at employee discretion with office work environment also an option. Majority of team is located in Austin, TX, and working remotely with infrequent in-office presence.

Required Materials

• Resume/CV
• 3 work references with their contact information; at least one reference should be from a supervisor
• Letter of interest