Agile Coach | Data & Analytics

Popular, Inc. - Charlotte, NC

Full-time - Mid Level

Hybrid - Charlotte, NC

5,001-10,000 employees

About the position

At Popular, we are dedicated to making our customers' dreams come true by offering financial solutions at every stage of their lives. As an Agile Coach within our Enterprise Data & Analytics Division, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring effective value delivery based on defined agile principles and practices. Your primary responsibility will be to work closely with leaders at all levels and teams to mentor and guide them in finding the best solutions for their specific challenges. You will analyze the division's existing workflows and implement improvements to streamline processes and create efficiencies. This role is crucial for the long-term strategy of the division, as you will help our teams deliver better products in a faster and more efficient manner. As an Agile Coach, you will be the protector and defender of the Agile Manifesto, facilitating agile leadership training to support the organizational needs for better ways of working. You will design strategies to increase transparency across portfolio, program, and team levels, and coach Scrum Masters and Product Owners throughout the organization. Your efforts will include creating an agile assessment baseline for new teams and coaching them to higher levels of maturity at a sustainable pace. You will foster a psychologically safe environment where team members can share new ideas and raise concerns without fear of retaliation. Your role will also involve continuous collaboration with Product Owners to enhance their responsibilities as visionaries, collaborators, decision-makers, and influencers. You will coach teams on effectively delivering products and services through agile practices, ensuring alignment with the company's vision while balancing the needs of the business, teams, and customers. Additionally, you will provide guidance on selecting the appropriate agile framework (Scrum or Kanban) based on specific criteria, and develop and facilitate training sessions to drive awareness and adoption of agile practices and mindset. Ultimately, your contributions will help teams transition to agile methodologies and mature their processes, ensuring adherence to agile principles and improving overall delivery predictability and quality.

Responsibilities

• Protector and defender of the Agile Manifesto and its values and principles
• Facilitate agile leadership training to support the organizational needs for better ways of working
• Design strategies to increase transparency across portfolio, program, and team levels
• Coach and mentor Scrum Masters and Product Owners throughout the organization
• Create an agile assessment baseline for new teams and coach to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable
• Develop a psychological safety environment on teams where individuals can share new ideas and concerns can be raised without fear of retaliation
• Continuously work with the product owner on improving their responsibility of being a visionary, collaborator, customer representative, decision maker, experimenter, and influencer
• Coach teams on how to effectively deliver products and services through agile practices such as backlog prioritization and planning
• Coach and teach teams how to align the backlog to the company's vision, balancing the needs of the business, teams, and customers
• Build and improve individual skills of servant leadership, facilitator, conflict navigator, impediment remover, and change agent
• Provide team guidance to determine which agile framework (Scrum or Kanban) to use based on certain criteria
• Develop and facilitate trainings and coaching sessions to drive awareness and adoption of agile practices and mindset
• Identify and solve for organizational impediments that hinder agility
• Define the vision and goals at different levels of an initiative to ensure alignment between the organizational vision and the team's execution
• Help teams with transition to agile methodologies and maturing the process by providing guidance, training, and support throughout the process
• Support teams in implementing Agile practices and processes such as Scrum or Kanban methodologies
• Support the team to define acceptance criteria, definition of done (DoD), definition of ready (DoR), story refinement at different levels of planning
• Establish cadence, facilitate, and drive the agile ceremonies such as Stand ups, Sprint Planning, Reviews, and Retrospective
• Facilitate impediment removal by encouraging collaboration within the team and outside the team
• Organize and facilitate SoS (Scrum of scrum) meetings by bringing representatives from multiple Scrum teams together to discuss inter-team coordination, dependencies, and roadblocks
• Identify and manage dependencies between teams
• Work closely with agile teams to identify potential risks and issues that may impact project delivery
• Establish practices that improve predictability of delivery, productivity improvement, schedule, and delivery of commitments, and quality
• Responsible for ensuring data maintained in agile tools is consistent to support enterprise-wide requirements
• Foster close cooperation across all team members, encourage cross-training and supporting each other

Requirements

• BA/BS or equivalent in a business-related discipline, Information Systems or Computer Science is preferred
• Agile coaching certification is required
• Minimum of five years of experience as an agile coach working with mid/large enterprises
• Experience and understanding in major agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Scrum @ Scale)
• Effective facilitation skills
• Effective coaching and mentoring skills
• Ability to thrive in a highly ambiguous, fast-paced environment where priorities shift rapidly
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to identify effective solutions
• Effective influence, collaboration, and negotiation skills
• Ability to foster trusting relationships with colleagues and clients
• Ability to work independently and to carry out assignments to completion within parameters of instructions given
• Ability to operate at all levels of management, with excellent verbal, written and presentation skills (in both English and Spanish)
• Knowledge of the following programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and hands-on JIRA tool experience required