Scrum Master

Pacific Blue Cross has been British Columbia’s leading benefits provider for 80 years. We are an independent, not-for-profit society with strong roots in BC’s health care system. Together with our subsidiary BC Life, we provide health, dental, life, disability and travel coverage for approximately 1.5 million British Columbians through employee group plans and through individual plans for those who do not have coverage with their employers.

We are fueled by a commitment to keep health care sustainable for all British Columbians. Through our Community Connection Health Foundation, we also provide funding to community organizations with a focus on alleviating mental illness and chronic disease. We’re interested in finding people who want to make a difference and who will take advantage of every opportunity to build a career with us.

Pacific Blue Cross offers an attractive compensation and benefits package, fitness programs, and an onsite gym and cafeteria. Our workplace culture values health and wellness, continuing education, environmental sustainability and giving back to the community.

We are currently recruiting for 2 Scrum Masters to join our IaTs team! This is a permanent, full-time role, and will require working from both, office and home (hybrid).

Job Summary

Under the broad managerial direction of the Director, Delivery Services and Senior Project Manager, coordinates the work of multiple cross functional teams working within the Scaled Agile Framework methodology to ensure the effective execution and delivery of program, product and service objectives. Represents assigned multi-functional teams in Scrum meetings and facilitates the smooth flow of information to address dependencies, risks and impediments affecting optimal team delivery. Collect and manage measures to support tracking and optimization of PBC Delivery practices. Provides regular updates to Business Owners on team metrics, facilitates planning events and make recommendations concerning team capacity to deliver on stakeholder expectations.

Job Duties

Agile Team Facilitation

1. Within the vision, roadmap and work backlog established by the Director, Delivery Services, coordinates the work of multiple cross functional teams working within the Agile methodology through adherence to the standardized procedures and tools to ensure the effective execution and delivery of program, product and service objectives by:

providing coaching to team members and reinforcing team agreements on the application of Scale Agile core values, built in quality, transparency and program execution, the adoption of agile principles, the implementation of agile practices such as estimating, and the interpretation of such terms as Definition of Done DoD) within the context of each increment and iteration;

resolving interpersonal conflicts and actively pursuing options for individual team member growth and development; escalates continuing performance challenges to IaTS Managers for follow up action;

encouraging continuous improvement in team approaches to quality, predictability, workflow and speed of delivery;

tracking, maintaining and reporting on team performance related to quality, predictability, delivery times and achievement of business objectives;

consulting with the Director, Delivery Services at the outset of team initiatives to provide input on the refining and sizing of features and enablers for each program increment based on an assessment of team capacity, and to gain awareness of the product work backlog;

managing configuration settings within an application’s existing user interface to align the system outcomes with stakeholder expectations.

acting as a subject matter expert to the team on technical business processes, rules, procedures and screen layouts, and providing guidance and advice on end-user impacts of system design;

determining and documenting security setup requirements through analysis of user screens, data access requirements and business functions; sets up security parameters to control screen and data access based on business requirements;

designing preliminary screen layouts, mock ups, storyboards and report layouts;

creating and updating documentation such as design specifications, business rules and report generation requirements;

preparing and leading presentations to the team to communicate requirements and provide sufficient information to plan, design, test, execute and deliver enhanced or new products/services to the business;

confirming outcomes with business owners;

contributing to the development of cost-benefit and ROI analyses by identifying required information at business stakeholder or team member request, running extracts, and interpreting impact of different alternatives based on extracted information;

researching software and hardware product or services, assessing feasibility and compiling resource estimates;

mapping current processes;

analyzing the effectiveness of existing products/service including business processes, work flow, process overlaps, bottlenecks, sources of delay, error potential, decision points and cycle times;

investigating user-identified production incidents or other events through review of data set-up, user procedures applied prior to the incident, existing system capabilities and enhancement history, file requirements and system interdependencies;

consulting with stakeholders to document requirements and identify and compile all information required to fully communicate business requirements for enhanced or newproduct/service solutions to the development team;

facilitating Agile team planning sessions for each program increment and promoting understanding of the Director, Delivery Services and Business Owner’s business contexts, functional requirements, acceptance criteria and user stories;

coordinating the team’s program increment planning;

scheduling and coordinating the execution of daily team huddles to track team progress throughout all stages of delivery, promoting team commitment towards achieving goals and communicating organizational and technical procedure changes impacting the program, product or service undergoing enhancement or development;

identifying specific roadblocks encountered by the team and facilitating group discussion and team plans concerning their removal including formal Decision Records as required;

applying collaborative tools and techniques such as storyboarding and Kanban boards to visualize progress of the work, creating the conditions for effective group dialogue and involving all team members and dependent teams in pooling their expertise to achieve immediate goals;

coordinating preparation for and execution of internal and external presentations made by team members such as System Demos, Inspect and Adapt workshops, and other related Agile ceremonies;

introducing tools to enhance team collaboration such as rules of Scrum, Work in Progress (WIP) limits from Kanban, and other process rules for consideration and adoption by the team;

monitoring status of work and escalating situations with impacts external to team operation such as priorities, timing and resources to the Director, Delivery Services and stakeholders for resolution;

facilitating formal team retrospectives at the conclusion of iterations to identify what went well in the execution of iteration activities, the barriers encountered in activities and processes, how best to overcome challenges and generally improve team performance going forward.

Cross-Organizational Coordination with Other Agile Teams

2. Represents each of the assigned multifunctional teams in meetings, facilitates the smooth flow of information between teams and ensures key information affecting each iteration is communicated to all participants where interdependencies exist. Maintains awareness of dependencies and interdependencies affecting parallel teams.

Director, Delivery Services Support

3. Collects, analyzes and provides regular updates to the Director, Delivery Services on team performance metrics. Participates in active discussion and debriefs with Director, Delivery Services throughout all increments to facilitate the team’s objectives and to incorporate Director, Delivery Services feedback and observations in addressing backlogs. Provides insights and recommendations concerning team capacity to deliver on stakeholder expectations.

General Team and Department Support

4. Through continuous learning initiatives, maintains up to date knowledge of industry Agile Scrum Master principles, practices, PBC strategic objectives and branding, policies, procedures protocols and organizational structure. Maintains continuing awareness of systems design concepts, tools, security requirements, operating systems, end-user business products/services specific to PBC’s user environment and general technology trends including those associated with the rapid pace of change through the application of a variety of learning options, online self-service platforms, in-house support, skills assessment and other learning and development tools. Maintains required proficiency levels in industry Scrum Master certification.

5. Performs other assigned duties related to the provision of team facilitation and product owner support which do not affect the rating of the job.

Qualifications

Completion of Post-secondary 2-year diploma with emphasis on software development, project management within an Agile environment, operations management or equivalent

Certification in Scaled Agile Framework Scrum Master (14 hours) or equivalent

Demonstrated critical thinking skills gained through the successful application of problem-solving methods such as problem analysis, logic and judgement

5 years minimum previous experience including:
2 years working within a Lean and Agile software delivery team environment

3 additional years in progressively senior roles in business and information technology

Demonstrated proficiency with facilitating teams

Working knowledge of design thinking, and Lean and Agile software delivery

We strive to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and employees feel empowered to freely participate and contribute regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, education level, parental status, or socioeconomic status. PBC is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates.

To request an accommodation in completing this application, pre-employment testing, interviewing or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please direct your inquiries to [email protected]