Scrum Master (Expert) - BNP Paribas Fortis

Detailed Responsibilities and Skills

Additional Responsibilities

• Coordinate testing, releases, operational readiness and production follow-up.
• Facilitate collaboration between technical, functional, business and operational stakeholders.
• Coach and challenge the Project Team.
• Help the team face difficulties and promote its gradual self-organization.
• Remove barriers to team effectiveness and protect the team from outside distractions.
• Act as an ambassador of Agile methods within the company.
• Foster collective ownership and collaboration beyond primary disciplines to achieve the Sprint Goal and deliver value.
• Coach and challenge the squad in effective Scrum, Kanban and Agile principles.
• Improve ownership, predictability, collaboration and delivery effectiveness beyond ceremony facilitation.
• Identify root causes behind recurring impediments with the team.
• Promote progressive self-organization and collective ownership.
• Protect the team from unnecessary disruption while maintaining strong stakeholder connectivity.
• Create trust, transparency, constructive challenge and continuous feedback.
• Coach the Product Owner and team on backlog quality, prioritization, refinement and Sprint Goal focus.
• Encourage knowledge sharing and continuous improvement within the squad.
• Act as an Agile ambassador within TCF and contribute to the Scrum Master community.
• Provide transparent reporting and escalation for impediments or dependencies unresolved within the squad.

General skills

• 5 years of experience in a relevant domain
• Master Degree or equivalent by experience
• Sound knowledge of English as well as (at least) one local language.
• Expert knowledge of Agile frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban.
• Strong experience facilitating and coaching cross-functional Agile teams.
• Sound knowledge of project and delivery management practices.
• Proven ability to manage dependencies, impediments, risks and delivery commitments.
• Ability to navigate a large organization and interact effectively at different levels.
• Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills.
• Ability to communicate impediments and risks in a transparent, structured and fact-based manner.
• Experience coordinating delivery involving several applications or teams.
• Experience working with distributed and/or external delivery partners.
• Has a positive and pragmatic attitude, with strong empathy and communication skills.
• Creates an environment of trust, transparency and constructive challenge.
• Listens before proposing solutions and helps the team solve problems autonomously.
• Is comfortable challenging both the squad and stakeholders when commitments, priorities or expectations are unclear.
• Is proactive rather than waiting for impediments to become critical.
• Communicates difficult delivery situations clearly and objectively.
• Encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• Supports the development of both the team and individual team members.
• Uses feedback and data to drive continuous improvement.
• Promotes collaboration and autonomy rather than command-and-control.
• Asks questions before giving instructions and uses influence before authority.
• Is able to zoom out from day-to-day Sprint activities and understand broader delivery, dependency and organizational impacts.
• Remains structured and calm when dealing with ambiguity, competing priorities or complex dependencies.

Technical skills

• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle.
• Understanding of distributed software development.
• Understanding of Agile software lifecycle management.
• Understanding of operational readiness, testing and production delivery.
• Understanding of automated testing and Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery principles.
• Sufficient technical affinity to understand integration and architecture discussions and their potential delivery impact.
• Previous experience in a banking or financial-services environment.
• Experience working with transversal/platform squads providing capabilities to multiple consumers.
• Experience with complex application integrations, APIs or document/content-management environments.

Tools

• Experience with Agile delivery and reporting tools such as Rally and/or Jira.