This mug could be yours!

Well, we don’t really have that specific mug, but what we can offer you is the best job, working for the best company, working with the best people, and the best coffee you will ever have in your life. Period. LIMRA / LOMA (LL Global Inc.)’s IT division is looking to add a Senior Scrum Master to our totally awesome and wicked cool Agile Scrum team! The Product? A total overhaul of our critical, externally facing, direct member interacting, value and revenue-generating website, the mothership, LIMRA.com.

Interested? Read on…

Who We Are:

LIMRA, LOMA, and our parent organization, LL Global Inc., are an international research and education trade association for the insurance, retirement, and financial services industries, serving the needs of more than 1,200 member companies across 64 countries.

Leading life insurance and financial services organizations around the world rely on their membership for one simple reason — they can make bottom-line decisions with greater confidence. Companies look to us because no other organization is better positioned to help them understand their customers, markets, distribution channels, and competitors.
We believe that greatness is built from the inside out. It is created by individuals who share common goals, and who support and rely on one another to achieve them. Our core values (Integrity, Customer Focus, Adaptability, Respect and Excellence) guide us in how we treat, respond to and interact with our Customers, and one another. We do our best to support our employees in making the most of their lives both inside and outside of work.

Who You Are:

The Senior Scrum Master is a servant leader that leads other Scrum Masters & enables team/s to drive features forward, while also focusing on dependency management at the team level for 5+ teams. You will oversee teams’ functionality in Agile Scrum Software Development Methodology, ensuring that they meet the required milestones. You must have a proven track record of successfully executing large-scale projects in previous role(s) as a Scrum Master and/or as a Project Manager. You will be expected to performs your duties within established guidelines and scaled agile environments of the associated portfolio and greater organization, adhering to standards established across all agile teams.

You’d be expected to lead multiple teams and other Scrum Masters through change. Mastery and passion around servant leadership, and helping teams become self-organizing and self-sufficient will be a key element in this role. Agile Coaching knowledge and implementation of coaching practices are essential for this individual to possess. In this role, you will be coaching development teams to help them maximize their potential both at the team level, as well as individually.  This requires big thinkers who bring insight, past experiences, knowledge, technical acumen and passion for innovation. You must have a willingness to understand existing processes and systems, possess strong interpersonal, and communication skills. Most of all, the candidates need to demonstrate exceptional customer orientation and customer focus. We really love our customers, internal and external, and we want you to share in that!

What You’ve Got:

• Bachelor degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Certified Scrum Master and/or other Agile certifications.
• 10+ years of software development industry experience, including analysis and industry specific business expertise.
• 7+ years of solid experience in Project Management
• 5+ years in Agile project management or Agile Coaching experience in a well-established, high-performing Agile software development environment with at least some dedicated teams. Alternatively, 5+ years of Scrum Master experience with in-depth knowledge of Scrum and implementation of Agile Methodologies to multiple teams in large-scale enterprise change projects and programs.
• Strong knowledge of Scrum and other Agile frameworks and software engineering practices, as well as traditional project management approaches.
• Ability to understand technologies applicable to assigned product or service area and facilitate resolution of technical needs as they arise.
• Comfortable leading business and technology in vetting technical options.
• Have experience in a full software development lifecycle and SOA environment, with exposure to a wide array of technologies, including development & testing tools.
• Superb written and verbal communications, presentation skills, and meeting facilitation skills (including with an executive audience).
• Possess a solid technical background; ability to drive resolution of technical issues and incorporate technical and architectural considerations into planning, decisions, and recommendations.
• Ability to influence and motivate people to high levels of performance and teamwork.
• Demonstrated working partnership with engineers, technical and business management, department heads, and product managers. Proven ability to pull together diverse individuals with different goals and facilitate productive discussion and action.
• Track record of leading others and positive change in project definition, project delivery, and process improvement. Comfortable working with ambiguity and evolving priorities.

Other Stuff HR Makes Us List, but it’s, important, so read it:

 ‘The What’

• Provides coaching around Agile frameworks and best practices for feature/project delivery, utilizing traditional project management approaches when needed.
• Facilitates and/or supports Agile framework ceremonies for Agile teams.
• Responsible for teaching and enforcing the values and principles of Agile, while promoting self-organization and constantly improving our standards of work.
• Identifies, tracks, and removes impediments for feature/project and team success.
• Partner with Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Business Stakeholders, and Architecture to deliver business value.
• Facilitates the creation of a well-defined product backlog. Schedule and facilitate all aspects of the Scrum framework, including sprint planning sessions, backlog grooming, daily scrums, product demos, and sprint retrospectives.
• Maintain the Scrum team’s capacity plan, Scrum board, sprint backlog, velocity charts and burn down charts.
• Identify and help remove impediments to the success of the Sprint.
• Identify and communicate potential risks to the completion of the Sprint, including resources, costs, and external dependencies, with proactive escalation as appropriate.
• Ensures planning of go-live and deployment activities and facilitate their execution.
• Ensures that all team members understand and accept their roles and responsibilities.
• Assists with resource allocation and effective capacity planning for team to determine what team can take on in any given sprint.
• Monitors sprint velocity and works with team to determine how they can continue to improve on velocity and recognize additional efficiencies as they mature.
• Tracks and reports key project metrics, informing stakeholders as appropriate.
• Manages feature/project delivery with respect to capital budgets.
• Manages relationships with all invested parties, including (but not limited to): Product, Engineering, Brands/Audiences, and/or other key stakeholders.
• Arbitrates and resolves conflict within the team.
• Coordinates participation of different tech and business groups in requirements gathering, specifications, design, development and implementation of key projects.
• Learns, understands, and actively uses project management & ticket tracking software to effectively manage the team's backlog and sprint-committed items.
• Interact and oversee initiatives involving 3rd party vendors and offshore scrum teams.
• Operate as a servant leader in service to the teams’ needs, and do everything possible so that the team performs at its highest levels.

‘The How’

• Drives efficient team operations by promoting a common understanding of Scrum roles, rituals, artifacts, and processes, ensuring their adherence through a voice of reason and authority, and by facilitating all Scrum ceremonies.
• Protects the team and puts the needs of the team first, keeping each team member focused on their role by proactively flagging and removing impediments to the team's delivery on sprint commitments and overall performance, resolving conflicts both within the team and with stakeholders outside of the team.
• Optimizes the team to their highest potential and embodies the spirit of Agile and continuous improvement, by motivating the team towards self-organization, by surfacing data and learnings that illuminate areas to improve, and by continually learning and applying new tools and techniques to manage himself or herself and coach the team.
• Creates transparency into the team and trust with the business and stakeholders, by continuously honing team estimation capabilities, by keeping the team focused on delivering on their roadmap commitments, and by providing visibility into team progress through demos, sprint progress reporting, and communication.
• Business Owner Mindset - Operate with keen business knowledge, expense, risk & controls driven mindset.
• Customer Driven-Focus – Our enterprise continuous improvement effort, innovative problem solving and efficient local decision making for continuous improvement.
• Growth & Development - Maximize development of self and other.
• Deliver Outcomes – Demonstrate a bias for speed and execution that serves our shareholders and customers.
• Operate as a Team Player – Work together to drive solutions for the good of the enterprise.
• Build Strong Partnerships – Demonstrate integrity and build trust with others.
• Strive for Excellence – Motivate yourself and others to achieve high standards and continuously improve.