Scrum Master

at  Allianz UK

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

• Facilitate the agile teams to deliver their prioritised outcomes and follow the chosen agile methods and frameworks (e.g. Scrum, Kanban, SAFe)
• Coach Product Owners to provide Product and sprint goals, maintain the Product Backlog and help ensure that each Product Backlog Item is clearly articulated according to agile best practice
• Coach agile teams and individuals to understand the importance of metrics, to become self-managing and cross-functional and help them demonstrate their values (i.e. commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect)
• Support teams in assessing their agile maturity and ultimately provide coaching for the team to higher maturity levels at a sustainable and comfortable pace for the team and organisation
• Foster a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution or being judged, emphasising healing and problem-solving
• Help to create a high energy, motivating environment for the Agile team making use of the team charter and retrospective ceremonies to identify how to continuously improve the teams enjoyment and effectiveness of ways of working
• Set up and encourage the use of Agile tooling to allow teams to thrive and collaborate wherever they may be situate

ESSENTIAL SKILLS

• Passion for and knowledge of Agile values, principles and practices with experience of delivering within an agile team
• Solution focussed with a keen and pro-active approach to problem-solving and removing blockers to progress, with experience in handling conflicting and competing demands from stakeholders
• Competent with use of Agile tooling such as Jira, Confluence, Miro
• Strong relationship and trust building skills
• Experience working with distributed teams in multiple time-zones where cultural differences need to be considered
• Effective ‘True Leadership’ skills; listener, persuasive and approachable
• Exceptionally strong in communicating with the team and providing day to day support and continual improvement

DESIRABLE SKILLS

• Experience of financial and budget management for change initiatives
• Experience of resource negotiation – requesting, evaluating and helping to resolve with resource disruption
• Scrum Master certification (PSM/CSM or equivalent)

Agility is a major part of our ambition here at Allianz with all of our Communities of Practice working towards transforming our organisation. We are recruiting for experienced Scrum Masters who are passionate about change to join our Transformation Programme, the largest business transformation programme at Allianz, it’s purpose to harmonize, simplify and scale Allianz assets across the entire Group to the benefit of OEs, employees and, ultimately, customers. This is a massive undertaking in every respect that puts Allianz at the forefront of industry innovation.
We have a permanent opportunity within the Transformation Programme and also a 18 month FTC.
As a Scrum Master (SM) you will act as a servant leader to one or more Scrum teams, normally within a wider scaled agile model. The SM is focused on ensuring that scrum teams, as well as the wider organisation, align with Agile values and principles.
You’ll lead by example, live and practise Agile values and principles, you’ll be accountable for the teams’ effectiveness, coaching teams to focus on quality, velocity and delivery of value. You’ll support the Product Owners by coaching them to improve their product backlog management techniques and ensure clarity of product and scrum goals for the developers.