At Shoprite, you will be part of delivering integrated solutions across the Shoprite Group to some of the most recognized South Africa Retail brands and you will do it by working on best of breed technologies. We are proud to be publicly recognised as a largest private sector employer in South Africa and leading employer in Africa. We focus on attracting, developing, and retaining a loyal and committed workforce, dedicated to the Group's culture and organisational objectives.
Role Purpose
The purpose of the Scrum Master is to lead scrum teams in agile development and achievement of product goals, including defining and refining backlog items, planning and managing multiple feature developments, sprints/iterations, sprint reviews and retrospectives with the aim of delivering high-value increments that meet the Definition of Done. This role leverages solid scrum software development project management knowledge to contribute to the scrum method adoption and practice within the larger IT team within the domain, and guides the scrum team towards product releases within set guidelines, ensuring clear communication and team organization. The Senior Scrum Master advocates for scrum values and principles within the agile framework, remaining flexible and open to opportunities for the team to improve their workflow. This includes removing impediments for the scrum team to ensure delivery of commitments according to set goals and deliverables.
This is a Servant Leader role that builds trust-based relationships, stimulates empowerment and transparency, drives commitment, encourages collaboration, flexibility, empathy and ethical behavior within the scrum team, stakeholders and the customers they serve. Furthermore, this role facilitates trains, coaches and facilitates scrum to the larger team by ensuring the scrum framework is followed. The nature of projects in this role are generally high impact within a domain and do from time-to-time impact other domains.
We are currently searching for Scrum Master II's with experience in one or more of the functional areas below:
Functional Portfolios
- Planning and Merchandising
- Digital Technologies / Ecommerce
- Retail and Functional Services
- Data and Analytics
- Engagement and strategy
- IT Financial Services
Scrum Team And Service Delivery
- Ensure relevant teams are practicing core Agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility in accordance with relevant standards.
- Support the product development process, the Product Owner and the scrum delivery team to ensure delivery of solutions and product releases.
- Use appropriate communication channels within the scrum team to create a trusting and safe team environment.
- Participate proactively in developing and maintaining team standards in order to maximise team performance.
- Provide the team with relevant prerequisites before sprints to enable them to deliver against expectations.
- Facilitate the team delivery ensuring the sprint promises remains unobstructed, mitigating external disruptions and distractions, whenever possible, to ensure optimal team effectiveness.
- Identify key dependencies and manage them closely to ensure delivery.
- Monitor and raise issues / blockers / risks early so they can be mitigated or cleared, enabling the team to deliver optimally.
- Track and ensure that delivery takes place according to the definition of Ready and/or Done.
- Optimise the velocity of delivery and focus on continuous improvement to enhance delivery and meet business needs.
- Facilitate discussions leading to collective decision-making, goal setting and conflict resolution within the team to ensure optimal team functioning.
- Maintain process documentation in accordance with best practice standards.
- Conduct proper planning on the prioritised sprint backlogs from both a business and technical viewpoint.
- Facilitate Agile ceremonies of sprint kick-off, daily stand-ups, sprint review, and sprint retrospective in order to meet business requirements.
- Assist with backlog maintenance and the facilitation of defects/bugs resolution to achieve and meet business needs.
- Support and educate Product Owners on maintaining the product backlog, actively managing this and preparing for next sprint.
- Monitor and ensure that items planned for the sprint are focused on, and unplanned work is identified and raised with the Product Owner to manage expectations and delivery.
- Track and communicate team velocity and sprint progress with relevant stakeholders.
- Identify and escalate any issues that might affect the delivery of the team, removing barriers between stakeholders and the team.
- Implement the product definition, providing feedback on the user experience and user interface as part of the overlapping phase.
- Degree or Diploma in Information Technology or a related field (essential).
- Scrum Master foundation certification (i.e., Certified Scrum Master / Agile Certified Practitioner / Professional Scrum Master) or relevant Scrum Master training - (essential)
- +3 years' relevant experience as a Scrum Master or similar role with solid experience delivering diverse IT solutions through the scrum software development methodology, driving agility within development teams, and managing sprints and backlogs in a variety of environments - (essential).
- Solid experience managing multiple scrum teams and feature development in one backlog and understanding of standard software development roles and responsibilities - (essential).
- Experience should include one or more of the following IT functional areas (desired).
- Planning and Merchandising
- Digital Technologies / Ecommerce
- Retail and Functional Services
- Data and Analytics
- Business Engagement and strategy
- IT Financial Services
- Ability to implement AGILE work methods Understands how the needs of the team and of the project vary across the phases of the life cycle. Able to understand and articulate the strategic direction. Able to execute given plans. A Scrum Evangelist, advocating for agile methodology, principles, and driving agile iteration and incremental achievement of business/product goals.
- A Servant-leader focused on the needs of the team members and the customers they serve, coaching and mentoring on scrum values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect within the scrum teams, and achieving results in line with the organization's values, principles, and business objectives.
- Decisive with strong problem-solving skills Integrates multiple and complex data sources to apply sound judgment; applies retail insights and knowledge to manage the division in a competitive, volatile trading and shopper landscape.
- Good business acumen and enterprising thinking, able to operate comfortably within business strategy, current trends and developments in the retail industry, whilst identifying and understanding key business and commercial issues impacting on and contributing to the success, profitability or improvement of the organization.
- Efficiently planning, organising and coordinating Able to timeously and efficiently prioritise and execute multiple and competing demands for self and others in a fast-paced environment, whilst coordinating people to ensure best use of time and resources to manage deliverables and deadlines.
- Ability to work in a high-volume, high-pressured environment and deliver high productivity, organising, prioritising, and reordering workload, implementing change in a fast-moving environment.
- Strong technical aptitude with a passion and excitement for applying IT systems or tools, new technologies and solutions and its range of possibilities to increase effectiveness within a functional area and derive value for the business.
- Is customer focused and understands customers and how best to serve them; committed to providing high-quality customer service and ensuring customer needs and expectations are met.
- Results-driven and quality focused Efficiently executes tasks and priorities, setting stretch goals for self, while remaining focused and working tenaciously towards meeting and exceeding expectations within quality standards. Strong commitment to quality and delivering a thorough approach to work.
