Scrum Master II

Join ICW GroupAre you looking to make an impactful difference in your work, yourself, and your community? Why settle for just a job when you can land a career? At ICW Group, we are hiring team members who are ready to use their skills, curiosity, and drive to be part of our journey as we strive to transform the insurance carrier space. We're proud to be in business for over 50 years, and its change agents like yourself that will help us continue to deliver our mission to create the best insurance experience possible.Headquartered in San Diego with regional offices located throughout the United States, ICW Group has been named for the twelfth consecutive year in a row and for the 20th time overall as a Top 50 performing P&C organization offering the stability of a large, profitable and growing company combined with a focus on all things people. It's our team members who make us an employer of choice and the vibrant company we are today. We strive to make both our internal and external communities better everyday! Learn more about why you want to be here!Purpose Of The JobThe Scrum Master facilitates and guides the agile practice within the product development teams. This position plays a crucial role in ensuring that the Scrum framework is effectively implemented, fostering collaboration, removing obstacles, and promoting continuous improvement between cross-functional teams.Essential Duties And ResponsibilitiesManages the development projects and facilitates sprint execution to ensure quality and timeliness.Facilitates Scrum ceremonies, including daily stand-up, sprint and release planning, sprint review, and retrospectives for one or more product teams to ensure alignment, accountability, and progress tracking.Collaborates with Product Owners to prioritize and groom the product backlog, ensuring it reflects business priorities, is well-defined, and ready for execution.Guides team in time estimating practices utilizing techniques like Planning Poker and facilitates team estimates and conversations around any differences that may crop up.Supports the development team in maintaining and updating Agile boards, backlog, and sprint artifacts in Agile tools (e.g., JIRA) to track progress and ensure transparency.Removes impediments and obstacles that hinder the team's progress, proactively identifies and addresses risks, and escalates issues as needed to ensure that deliverables are on time with production quality.Performs regular analysis of burndown charts and other portfolio planning tools to track velocity, team capacity, scope changes, escaped defects etc.Manages project level risks and challenges to foster transparency and collaboration.Facilitates internal communication and keeps project stakeholders up to date on progress of projects and works collaboratively to resolve people problems and project roadblocks.Represents the team at broader planning and coordination sessions (e.g., Scrum of Scrums), and protects the team from uncontrolled injection of work.Presents high level Sprint and Program Increment execution report for product managers.Works with multiple development vendor partners to build scalable products and development lifecycle processes.Supports scrum teams to adopt and follow agile values, principles, and practices.Advocates for Agile values and principles within the organization.Contributes to the advancement of agile practices and guides development teams to higher scrum maturity.Monitors Agile metrics to track team performance, measure outcomes, and identify areas for improvement.Actively participates in Agile workshops, and communities of practice.Supervisory ResponsibilitiesThis position has no supervisory responsibility.Education And ExperienceBachelor's degree from four-year college or university preferred with a major or emphasis in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field. Minimum 5 years of experience as a Scrum Master or similar role required. Leadership experience required. Experience in agile practices, patterns, and techniques.Certificates, Licenses, RegistrationsCertified Scrum Master required, SAFe preferred.Knowledge And SkillsStrong knowledge of scrum theory, rules, and practices. Working knowledge of agile methodology, techniques, and frameworks, such as Scrum or Kanban, to deliver solutions. Deep understanding of the fundamentals of iterative and incremental development. Ability to thrive in a highly collaborative, fast paced environment. Excellent people and project management skills. Exhibits leadership qualities without being authoritative. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, organizational skills, experience working with cross-functional teams, and presenting to leadership. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and conflict resolution. Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications including Word, Visio, Excel, and PowerPoint. Ability to apply principles of logic to a wide range of intellectual and practical problems. Ability to coordinate people and projects with a mind set on deliverables.Physical RequirementsOffice environment – no specific or unusual physical or environmental demands and employees are regularly required to sit, walk, stand, talk, and hear.Work EnvironmentThis position operates in an office environment and requires the frequent use of a computer, telephone, copier, and other standard office equipment.ICW Group is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. ICW Group will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex/gender, age, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.