Agile Coach

BCforward - Plano, TX

Full-time - Mid Level

Plano, TX

5,001-10,000 employees

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

About the position

BCforward is currently seeking a highly motivated Agile Coach for an opportunity in Plano, TX/Richmond, VA. This role is responsible for optimizing the flow of epics/features and the value delivered by a smaller Agile Release Train (ART). The Agile Coach will focus on serving the needs of the train to drive performance and growth. Key responsibilities include coordinating and facilitating the ART ceremonies, managing dependencies across teams in the ART, and providing visibility into the health of epic/feature delivery and the overall program increment. The Agile Coach ensures impediments to epic/feature delivery are resolved quickly and protects the teams from outside disruptions to delivery. They will also manage financials for the ART and assist with resource planning. Additionally, the Agile Coach promotes and coaches the Agile mindset and principles, empowering individual teams to become self-managing and fulfill their cross-functional potential. The Agile Coach will guide and coach the teams on the Agile Release Train on Scrum practices and develop their understanding of Agile principles. They will help define norms/agreements for the ART and enforce these agreements. The role involves coordinating and facilitating ART ceremonies such as Backlog Refinement, Program Increment (PI) Planning, ART Sync or PO Sync, Scrum of Scrums, System Demos, and Retrospectives. In collaboration with the Product Manager, the Agile Coach will ensure the program has a healthy product/program backlog and facilitate dependency management, risk management, and impediment removal for the ART. They will also be responsible for providing status updates and reporting pertaining to ART plans, delivery, timelines, and impediments to stakeholders and leadership. The Agile Coach will measure ART delivery, maturity, and performance, reviewing metrics with the ART to identify improvement opportunities, and capture data to help determine and track product funding and resource acquisition needs. Furthermore, they will mentor more junior Scrum Masters, ensuring a strong Agile practice within the organization.

Responsibilities

• Guide and coach the teams on the Agile Release Train on Scrum practices and develop their understanding of Agile principles.
• Help define norms/agreements for the ART and enforce the agreements.
• Coordinate and facilitate ART ceremonies (e.g., Backlog Refinement, Program Increment (PI) Planning, ART Sync or PO Sync, Scrum of Scrums, System Demos, and Retrospectives).
• In collaboration with the Product Manager, ensure the program has a healthy product/program backlog.
• Facilitate dependency management, risk management, and impediment removal for the ART.
• Promote/facilitate communication and collaboration within the ART to support value delivery and PI commitment.
• Provide status updates and reporting pertaining to ART plans, delivery, timelines, and impediments to stakeholders and leadership.
• Ensure Enterprise Change Management and other policy requirements for technology solutions are met for the epics/features delivered by the ART.
• Measure ART delivery, maturity, and performance and review the metrics with the ART to identify improvement opportunities.
• Capture data to help determine/track product funding and resource acquisition needs.
• Mentor more junior Scrum Masters.

Requirements

• 5-7+ years as a Release Train Engineer.
• Demonstrate deep understanding of Jira.
• Experience in defining norms/agreements for the Solution Train and enforcing the agreements.
• Proven experience coordinating and facilitating Solution Train ceremonies (e.g., Backlog Refinement, Pre-PI Planning, Post-PI Planning, Solution Train Sync, Architect Sync, Solution Demo, and Retrospective).
• Proven ability to promote/facilitate communication and collaboration within the Solution Train to support value delivery and PI commitments.
• Experience in creating and managing an intake process, healthy backlog, and facilitating valuable Agile ceremonies within established guardrails.
• Experience with teams to optimize implementation of Enterprise Agile standards and practices, and coach team members through change.
• Past experience identifying and resolving organizational impediments that impact team maturity and performance.
• Facilitates discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution across teams, stakeholders, and executives, including external teams, business partners, and other Agile Release Trains/programs.
• Influences and guides business and technology leaders on changes that enable Agility.
• Facilitates significant improvements to the operating model and the end-to-end delivery process.
• Establishes/leads Agile Communities of Practice and provides guidance in ongoing activities.
• Scaled Agile Certified SPC 5.0.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior Experience with Bank of America.
• Ability to manage and communicate with teams located across the globe with different time zones.
• Ability to manage multiple programs/projects and work with multiple RTEs to deliver shared success.

Benefits

• Major medical insurance
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Employer-provided group life insurance
• Voluntary life insurance
• Short-term disability
• Long-term disability
• 401k plan