Scrum Master - Sanlam Group

What will you do?

You will be responsible for overseeing and providing guidance to the scrum teams in BI, Analytics, and Digital environments. The additional responsibilities will include but are not limited to: 

• Ensuring that development teams follow Scrum framework values and agile practices

• Mentoring and motivating the teams to improve processes, facilitating meetings and decision-making processes, and eliminating team impediments.

• The Scrum Master will be considered a subject-matter expert, have excellent logic and problem-solving skills, and have the drive to make a difference. They will be responsible for enforcing the rules of Scrum, removing impediments from their team while promoting self-management, and constantly improving our standards of work.

Main responsibilities:

• Establishes and manages team cadence throughout the delivery lifecycle, facilitation of all scrum ceremonies

• Ensure the development teams are practicing the core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility. 

• Stakeholder management and playback, including product owners, executive sponsors, and other external teams

• Work closely with leadership to define product and establish product backlog. Owns delivery roadmap.

• Support execution team with resolution of roadblocks and interdependencies, managing risks and issues.

• Assist with bedding down BI capability operating model (People and process)

• Using agile methodology values, principles, and practices to plan, manage, and deliver solutions. 

• Training, mentoring and supporting scrum teams to follow agile values, principles, and practices. 

• Determining and managing tasks, issues, risks, and action items. 

• Manage each project’s scope and timeline 

• Coordinate sprints, retrospective meetings, and daily stand-ups 

• Ensure deliverables are up to quality standards at the end of each sprint 

• Scheduling and facilitating scrum events, meetings, and decision-making processes. 

• Monitoring progress and performance and helping teams to make improvements. 

• Planning and organizing demos and product/system testing. 

• Ensuring the proper use of collaborative processes and removing impediments for the scrum team. 

• Tracking project processes, deliverables, and financials. 

• Be the point of contact for external communications as well as prepare and present status reports to stakeholders.

• Coach team members in Agile frameworks 

• Facilitate internal communication and effective collaboration 

• Work with product owners to handle backlogs and new requests 

• Help teams implement changes effectively 

• Guide development teams to higher scrum maturity 

What will make you successful in this role?

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a relevant field preferred. 

• Certified Scrum Master 

• 5+ years of experience as a Scrum Master or in a similar role. 

• Excellent knowledge of Scrum techniques and artifacts (such as the definition of done, user stories, automated testing, backlog refinement)

• Working knowledge of agile methodology, techniques, and frameworks, such as Scrum or Kanban, etc.  to deliver solutions would be essential 

• Leadership and management experience. Excellent people and project management skills. 

• Strong communication and presentation skills. 

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills.

• Knowledge of various toolsets such as SAP Hana Studio, SAP Data Services, Informatica Data Quality Suite, Cloudera big data storage, and Microsoft Power BI will be advantageous.

• Experience in a Dev Ops environment and leading the development automation 

• Hands-on experience with software delivery life cycle and Agile/Scrum delivery management

• Experience in project management/Team lead roles mandatory.

• Experience in delivering BI products preferable

Qualification and Experience

• Degree with 5 to 6 years related experience.

Knowledge and Skills

• Knowledge of Scrum principles
• Product development process knowledge
• Agile methodology
• Sprint methodology and project management
• Reporting and Administration

Personal Attributes

• Interpersonal savvy - Contributing through others
• Decision quality - Contributing through others
• Optimizes work processes - Contributing through others
• Plans and aligns - Contributing through others

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development, and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves on helping our employees to realize their worth. Through its business clusters – Sanlam Personal Finance, Sanlam Emerging Markets, Sanlam Investments, Sanlam Corporate, Santam, Midway, as well as the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

• Being resilient - Contributing through others
• Collaborates - Contributing through others
• Cultivates innovation - Contributing through others
• Customer focus - Contributing through others
• Drives results - Contributing through others

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. 

Our commitment to transformation

The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensure a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa.  The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.