Scrum Master (4 month contract)- Tammy Bare

Sprint Management Responsibilities

Act as lead team spokesperson on delivery related items with responsibility for communicating the “story of the sprint”, including delivery stats, overall trends, etc. Maintain accurate and projected capacity plan at all times. Ensure appropriate backlog refinement activities are taking place – to maintain at least 1 sprints worth of groomed stories at all times. Ensure Epics/Features are reflected accurately for a specific piece of work so that status tracking can be done accurately. Facilitate specific agile ceremonies: Team Demo’s, Retro’s, Daily Standups, Dependency Huddle, Sprint Planning Meetings, etc. Capture, track and remove team blockers, escalating as needed. Capture, track and manage funnel and/or initiative specific RAID (risk, agreement, issue, decision) items. Escalate as needed. Note: initiatives that have Project/Program Managers assigned may track their RAID items differently. Capture, track and coordinate dependencies across all funnel related work items (aside from those being managed by a specific Project/Program Manager) in advance of sprints actual start. Ensure backlog health is maintained and ticket refinement ceremonies are consistent and effective (working with the aligned Business Analyst). Update directly or ensure maintenance by others of Jira and Confluence data at all times, ensuring accuracy of data leveraged within the Scrum master dashboard. Leverage the Scrum master dashboard metrics for decision making activities, presenting the information to others as required. Continue to provide feedback and ideas on improving the dashboard and driving a fact-based approach to decision making. Maintain initiative specific timelines and report initiative level status updates as appropriate (aside from those items being managed by a specific Project/Program Manager). Ensure communication occurs with all key stakeholders when sprints are defined (i.e sprint plans are set). With partner Scrum Masters, maintain master sprint calendar. Manage and maintain the Dependency Huddle and associated before, during and after the meetings as needed.

Team Performance/Advocacy Responsibilities

Key advocate for team members as needed and as it relates to sprint work. Safeguard the team and their efforts to ensure delivery health and performance meets expectations without burn out. Maintain a pulse on overall team vibrations, sharing with others as appropriate. Ensure teams processes are being followed, identifying areas where developing individual team members would increase overall team effectiveness. Partner effectively with the Product Manager along with the full team, to ensure successful enrollment occurs across all team members.

Delivery Management

Account for production support efforts within the Capacity Plans and subsequent Sprint Plans developed with the team. Provide inputs to aligned tech managers of trends or blockers associated with Dev team. Develop and manage milestones and task level activities for selected “special projects” to ensure visibility and adherence to target schedule. Communicate and engage with key stakeholders, keeping them informed on delivery activities, timelines and blockers. Manage RAID items, escalating to leadership as needed to ensure delivery activities continue as planned. Ensure performance against quarterly plan, escalating blockers or impacts to delivery per plan as needed. Update quarterly plan as required, sharing with key stakeholders when changes occur. Partner with Product Managers on quarterly plan activities, as appropriate. Protect the Sprint, once finalized, negotiating as needed when new items come in at the last minute. In the case of sev 1 production support items, the SM needs to communicate impacts to the shift in capacity mid sprint. Manage unplanned incoming items, ensuring Intake processes are followed as appropriate. Work with the Product Manager, shifting work as needed while ensuring communication or quarterly plans are updated as needed. Draft Quarterly Plan Change Requests as required. Work with Project/Program Managers on resource/work activities as if appropriate. Establish and track team working agreements.