Scrum Master
Boston, MA

Job Description

Position Summary:

This role acts as the "servant leader" of a specified agile product team by removing impediments and coaching the team in the agile methodology. They must understand the business at a high level and be able to exercise technical aptitude to understand and resolve technical impediments. They must be capable of leading a team to self-organization and push back against the Product Owner. This role facilitates the appropriate scrum events and employs various techniques to foster collaboration and protect the team from outside distractions. They will support the Product Owner to ensure that the product backlog has substantial 'sprint ready' items that tie to the overall product vision.

Responsibilities & Duties:

* Inspire the agile product team to embrace the full adoption of scrum practices by coaching the team on the framework and instilling an 'inspect and adapt' mindset
* Empower the team to self-organize in pursuit of a better, more fulfilling experience and improved productivity
* Generate a common understanding amongst the team of the product vision and strategy
* Manage vendor outsourcing engagements and foster accountability for deliverables, timeline, and quality during program / project delivery
* Create an environment for the agile product team to thrive by protecting the team from outside distractions and over commitment
* Champion ongoing process improvement initiatives to implement best practices for Agile Project Management
* Facilitate the appropriate scrum events: Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-Ups, Backlog Refinement, Retrospectives, sprint/release planning, and other Scrum-related meetings
* From retrospective, identify tangible growth areas and apply improvements moving forward
* Design processes and practices to help the team anticipate and identify impediments while resolving basic team impediments. Recognize when to escalate the impediments and who to involve
* Assist in team development while holding team members accountable for their commitments, removing roadblocks to their work, and mentoring and developing team members
* Ensure that each team member is fully engaged in the project and making a meaningful contribution, and encourage a sustainable pace with high-levels of quality for the team
* Advise and coach the Product Owner on the scrum framework, getting items to 'ready', user story best practices, writing good acceptance criteria
* Drive sharing of scrum best practices across Bain agile teams
* Provide management level reporting on project status, risks and mitigation strategies
* Track and communicate team velocity, happiness and sprint/release progress to all affected teams and management
* Other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

* 3 to 7 years' experience supporting applications, ideally with 2 to 3 years of direct project management experience
* Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
* Ability to help product managers formulate/articulate a decision on the course of action and communicate that message to all levels of organization
* Aptitude to follow technical discussions and bridge communications between product managers and developers


* Proficiency in analytical problem resolution
* Attention to detail
* Ability to work independently and with teams
* Self-motivated, proactive, and dependable
* Ability to simplify, prioritize, and make progress
* Flexible to shifting priorities
* Strong conflict resolution skills
* High performance and standards as demonstrated by academic or previous job experience
* Bachelor's degree in MIS, Computer Science or Business, or related experience
* Some travel required

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