Scrum Master/Mentor Full-time

Reports to: Senior Technical Lead

Contract Terms: 40 hrs, Monday – Friday; Flexible Schedule, with a minimum of 3-4 hours overlap with US East Coast business hours required; Employee with 1 year initial contract

Travel: Up to 10% international, including to HOT field project locations

Deadline: August 31, 2020

Estimated Start Date: Candidate Dependent

Work Location: Remote

About HOT

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is a US-based NGO and global community of thousands of volunteers working together to use maps and open data for humanitarian response and the Sustainable Development Goals. As the world’s preeminent participatory mapping NGO, HOT has fostered a global mapping community composed of more than 230,000 people with ground operations in eight countries. When major disaster strikes anywhere in the world, HOT rallies this global network to create the maps and data that enable responders to reach those in need.

About the Role

The Scrum Master/Mentor will oversee the scrum and development teams and coach and mentor the HOT tech team as agile/scrum is adopted more broadly across the organisation. You will be an Agile advocate and scrum superstar, which will motivate those around you. The Scrum Master/Mentor will act as a buffer between the scrum teams and module owners and maintain a safe working environment for the team by helping with conflict resolution.

You will need to be able to think fast to help solve problems. Strong communication skills are essential as you will be communicating with the development and scrum teams and the module owners. You will be experienced in managing stakeholders and multiple priorities and are dedicated to delivering win-win solutions.

The Scrum Master/Mentor will advance HOT’s mission by operationalizing the HOT_Tech core ethics:

-Human: Our Human ethic is our commitment to people as our priority. At the centre of all our technology sits a human. The ultimate purpose of our technology is to improve human conditions. We use technology to enable and amplify human efforts.

-Open: Our Open ethic permeates all we do. Our actions reflect radical openness and transparency. We encourage open inputs and outputs. Our team and technology openly welcomes and engages community, collaboration and contribution.

-Truth: Our Truth ethic reflects an OpenStreetMap core principle; the ‘truth on the ground’. Our activities and decisions will be guided by this ethic, where not easily resolved will defer to this as a core principle in order to define what best reflects the truth on the ground.

-HOT_Tech Principles>https://github.com/hotosm/tech/blob/master/principles/README.md

The Scrum Master/Mentor will coordinate and collaborate with key HOT_Tech supporting functions including the Director of Technology, Senior Technical Lead, Module Owners and Community Manager.

Priority Areas for Action and Responsibilities

Agile/Scrum Mastery: Agile/Scrum will be second nature to you. You live and breathe, build measure, learn. You have led scrum teams before and are agile in the way you deliver agile. You have worked with people at all stages of their agile journey and you can use your skills to develop theirs. You motivate the teams you work with in a unique way that only you can do.

Stewardship of Agile/Scrum Methodologies: You know that there are two types of organisations, those that do and those that don’t…yet. In the past, you have helped organisations and staff learn the ways of scrum and benefit from its adoption by an organisation. You will bring in the methodology, frameworks and procedures to ensure successful adoption. You believe that you can change the world, one sprint at a time.

Agile/Scrum Coaching and Mentorship: You know what it takes to adopt agile/scrum personally, professionally and organisationally. You know that there are two types of people, those that love agile and those that don’t…yet. You can connect personally with individuals at all levels of an organisation to support them in their journey. You know the pains and also the pleasures of bringing agile/scrum to an organisation.

Responsibilities

-Lead the scrum team in using Agile methodology and adopt scrum practices of transparency, inspection and adaptation
-Ensures the team is practicing the core agile principles of self-direction, collaboration, business prioritization, team accountability, and transparency, toward the consistent and iterative delivery of a working product
-Supports the Module Owners and Development teams, to refine and manage product backlog
-Supports the Module Owners to ensure feature requests are well-defined and prioritized and product roadmaps are provided that convey a clear vision of the product
-Provides hands-on supportive leadership and coaching of scrum teams in all aspects of scrum (facilitating daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint review and retrospectives, daily routines, self-organizing team, productive team collaboration, iterative development, continuous quality improvement, managing flow, calculating velocity, limiting work in progress, etc.)
-Assesses the maturity of the team and organization and coaches the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and appropriate for the team and organization
-Ensures that release deliverables are clearly communicated
-Identifies risks and supports mitigation activities, resolve conflicts and issues that occur
-Removes impediments that would prevent the team from achieving its sprint and release goals (internal and external to the team)
-Ensures that retrospectives produce actionable tasks; follows through to ensure that recommendations are implemented successfully and in a timely manner
-Assists with internal communication, improve transparency, and radiate information
-Review scrum processes, drive scrum process improvements and coach teams

About You

We are seeking a senior open source technologist with demonstrated experience leading agile/scrum for technology development. You believe that technology is built to improve people’s lives and you will be passionate about the potential of technology to change the world. You will play a critical role in coordinating and supporting a community of people who are committed to building technology for a purpose beyond their own personal achievements. You have the ability to teach, coach, inspire and motivate people to change their values and practices and evident experience persuading key stakeholders to become servant leaders and to empower people who use Scrum framework. Furthermore, you will be a great mentor supporting people in their professional journeys and in their personal ones. You will lead by example and experience and strike the balance of honesty, compassion and integrity.

Qualifications & Experience

-High school degree or equivalent in a relevant field.
-Agile/Scrum certifications, preferably PSM I or II.
-5+ years managing end-to-end product delivery
-5+ years experience with an agile software development team, some leadership responsibility
-3+ years experience working in international humanitarian or development agencies/NGOs.
-Demonstrated ongoing education in scrum; e.g. training, conferences, self-study etc.
-Some experience with other iterative methodologies and Agile approaches, e.g. Kanban
-Experience with OpenStreetMap (OSM) and associated OSM tools an advantage
-Be fluent in working in a fully or partially remote work environment
-Experience managing diverse, distributed teams over multiple geographies
-Experience presenting and communicating with C-level executives
-Exposure on stakeholder management
-Good understanding on product management and business analysis

Role Specific Skills

-Be passionate about reliable products that are easy to use and just work
-Facilitates discussion, healthy conflict, decision making, and conflict resolution
-Must have experience with JIRA and Confluence
-Ability to understand technical issues at a high level
-Must have exceptional communication, organization, time management and negotiation skills
-Must be self-motivated and capable of managing multiple priorities and tasks
-Must be creative and efficient in proposing solutions to complex, time-critical problems
-Strong analytical and problem solving skills with a high attention to detail
-Must be assertive but at the same time shows empathy
-Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Compensation & Benefits

-All HOT salaries globally are set according to a framework detailed on our website.
-HOT offers a work-from-anywhere culture, flexible working arrangements, a variety of health care options, 401k retirement savings plans, and 24 days of annual leave for all full-time employees.

To Apply

Please complete the application by August 31, 2020. Please continue to the second page of the form to upload your CV/resume (max 2 pages) and your responses to the following: (1) A motivation statement (150 words) (2) Your experience with the tension between technology and inclusion (200 words) (3) Your experience in an Agile team (250 words). Please ensure to upload only 1 PDF file titled ‘First Name.Last Name.’ No cover letter is required.