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Job Description:

Scrum Master Job Description

At Sun Life, we work together, share common values, encourage growth and achievement. Join our talented, diverse workforce and launch a rewarding career.

As a Scrum Master in Sun Life's Agile Excellence Domain, you will be part of our exciting journey through our multi-year Digital Enterprise transformation with a focus on driving forward new ways of working, bringing Business, IT and Operations closer together in delivering Client Value.

We are looking for a senior Scrum Master who can demonstrate skills and competencies with real-world work experience in this capacity - not just theory, courses or an academic certification. The awesome person who fills this role will need to be resilient and will influence and thrive in ambiguity.

The Scrum Master is empowered to introduce better ways to help the team perform at its highest level and is responsible for ensuring the team lives agile values and principles. The incumbent will actively participate in developing and maintaining a high performing, self-organizing team. This includes clearing obstacles, establishing an environment where the team can be effective, ensuring a good relationship between the team, product owner and delivery, as well as others outside the team.

What will you do:

Support the Hub Leadership team with alignment to the Journey/Platform vision and OKRs through execution of hub vision, roadmap, feature backlog and priorities. Enable effective ‘day-to-day’ of Hub activities such as motivating/mobilizes team, act as first-tier to eliminate impediments and provides guidance, coaching and support as required to Squad members

• Ability to draw connections between workstreams, recognize oncoming impediments and clear the path forward proactively before they become blockers
• Identify trade-offs between short and long-term benefits to drive shared vision between the Squads, Hubs and Platform
• Mobilizes leadership to solve impediments that are beyond the capability of the squad (e.g. technical, product, organizational).

• Define the expected outcomes with Squads, be assertive with the confidence to be voice of authority

• Facilitate collective action and decision making by helping to solve problems, impediments related to delivery of capabilities and features, (e.g. own agenda, push thinking)
• Proactively identify and escalate issues for sponsor support, be one step ahead of teams (1-2 sprints)
• Triage incoming needs and questions from external teams, find home of best fit
• Collaborate with Hub Owners , Hub IT Lead, and other Hub stakeholders to define, manage and help ensure the hub backlog align with OKRs.
• Support preparation and own content for key workshops and sessions (e.g. sponsor meetings)
• Facilitate large events such as Quarterly Increment Planning, Scaled Ceremonies, Hub Retrospective sessions
• Able to mentor on agile behaviours and practices – strengthen the team’s understanding of scaled agile principles in alignment with SunLife Digital Enterprise Operating Model, and ensure application of these practices
• Maintains consistent solution design and technical practices across Hub’s squads
• Communicates on the state of the agility of the team on different dimensions (technical, process, team collaboration, organizational obstacles etc.)
• Own tracking and reporting on objectives & key results, financials and resourcing etc.
• Support in tracking the execution of Features in the Hub backlog, ensuring the feature readiness to the squad align with defined definition of ready and the completed feature meet definition of done

Implement and promote the use of Agile methodology within the agile team:

• Facilitate agile ceremonies including sprint planning, sprint review and retrospectives
• Create a forum for discussing vision, goals, and Product Backlog items amongst the team
• Identify, manage, and help mitigate issues and risks, with particular emphasis on timely removal of impediments for the team and/or directing obstacles to appropriate owners for quick resolution
• Ensure that proper documentation (i.e. program vision statement, program backlog, program roadmap, release plan, sprint backlog, and increments) is prioritized and added to the team’s backlog of work
• Compliance with SLF policies and procedures for delivery and implementation

Ensure the team embraces the agile principles, values and framework:

• Coach the team and help lead and ensure the “agile mindset” is fully adopted and understood
• Assess and coach the team to higher levels of performance, focus, commitment, respect, and openness while tracking acceleration metrics
• Facilitate efforts with the support and implementation teams on how to integrate agile methodologies into a Waterfall environment.
• Encourage an environment of open communication and collaborative problem solving and where the impact of mistakes can be minimized through early detection as well as making them into learning opportunities

Develop and nurture strong partnering relationships with Product Owner, Squads, and stakeholders:

• Develop strong partnerships with the Product Owner and the Squads (agile teams) to gain strong understanding of objectives, sustain open dialogue to manage product backlog efficiently
• Influence a wide range of stakeholders (i.e. Business, Delivery, IT) to remove impediments and maximize team output
• Support and educate the Product Owner and the Squads on agile principles and practices to preserve the team from external pressures which may inhibit its productivity
• Protect the Squad from outside interruptions and distractions
• Brings a high-energy and passionate outlook to the job and can influence those around them
• Able to build a sense of trust and rapport that creates a comfortable & effective workplace

What will you need to succeed?

• 5+ years experience as a senior Scrum Master
• Certified SASM or Certified SSM, Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) or ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching ( ICP-ACC) , Kanban Management Professional (KPM) an asset, Certified SAFe Release Train Engineer ( RTE) an asset
• Experience in scaled Agile environments, SAFe certification is preferred
• Experience leading or shaping large transformational efforts is an asset
• 3-5+ years experience with Agile Toolsets (JIRA, Confluence, Miro)
• Strong leadership, thought leadership and communication skills with ability to communicate complex messages, trade-offs and tell a compelling story to a diverse group of stakeholder
• Experience in coaching teams with various profiles and maturity levels
• IT PM experience and/or understanding the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Mainframe experience in insurance, health, or financial industry is an asset

What’s in it for you?

• Great Place to Work® Certified in Canada and the US - 2022
• Great Place to Work® award for Best Workplaces for #HybridWork
• 2022 Named “Best Places to Work” by Glassdoor
• Canada Award for Excellence for Mental Health at Work
• Flexible hybrid work model including work-from-home if you prefer.
• Work and professional development that is united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives
• Be part of our continuous improvement journey in developing the next greatest digital enterprise experience
• Pension, stock and savings programs to help build and enhance your future financial security

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com .

At Sun Life we strive to create a flexible work environment where our employees are empowered to do their best work. Several flexible work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Salary Range:

80,000/80 000 - 130,400/130 400

Job Category:

Project Management - Systems

Posting End Date:

14/09/2023