Scrum Master, Research Data & Tech Analysis - FS

Position Description Minimum Education Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience Minimum Experience 4 Summary With managerial assistance, leads moderately complex internal and special projects in a Scrum Master role aligned with Agile best practices. Facilitates and champions the Agile development process by coaching and mentoring development teams, identifying and eliminating impediments, and promoting the use of standards and best practices. Prepares materials and logistics and coordinates Agile ceremonies among multiple parties with intermediate skill (e.g., retrospectives). Promotes team efficiency by employing a systematic approach of evaluating and optimizing underlying processes. Intermediately skilled at using emotional information (e.g., awareness of personal strengths/weakness, ability to accept change, understanding of others’ abilities, motives, and values) in a meaningful way, to guide thinking and behaviors.Duties And Responsibilities• * Organizes and facilitates Agile ceremonies including daily stand-up meetings, sprint reviews, retrospectives, sprint planning, and product backlog refinement sessions. Facilitates adoption of Agile standards, tools, and best practices. Prepares materials and logistics and coordinates Agile ceremonies among multiple parties with intermediate skill (e.g., retrospectives). Effectively facilitates user story estimation and forecasting. Facilitates ceremonies to be focused on the desired outcomes, adhering to timeboxes when appropriate.• Identifies and resolves impediments to team progress. With moderate guidance, coaches the team on improving collaboration and self-management, promoting healthy interactions within the team. Supports the team in using Agile planning and tools (e.g., Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, JIRA, Confluence, Rally).• With moderate guidance, promotes team efficiency by employing a systematic approach of evaluating and optimizing underlying processes. Actively conceptualizes, analyzes, and synthesizes information with intermediate skill. Integrates the information into development of a resolution. Considers the values, risks, impact, and implications in evaluating information and choosing alternative solutions. Intermediately skilled at recommending improvements to functional areas and processes.• With moderate guidance, leads a few projects of moderate size and complexity in a high-visibility environment. Coordinates resources assigned to projects with various business units. Plans and organizes activities (e.g., projects, events, meetings) with intermediate skill. Leads projects using various project management tools and techniques in accordance with best practices and reports status to project sponsors, oversight bodies, and division leadership. Creates and executes project work plans and revises as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements. With moderate guidance, manages the setting of project plan milestones, resource allocation, project estimations, project budget expenditures and work status and reporting. Identifies project dependencies and critical path.• Possesses intermediate knowledge of the client’s strategies, functions, issues, and relationships that drive day-to-day operations, decisions, and workforce dynamics. Able to use this knowledge to help the team better meet the client’s business needs and requirements.• With moderate guidance, facilitates constructive dialogue, asking probing questions to determine root causes, and clearly defines the scope of a problem to support the team in action planning to resolve conflict. Understands and utilizes emotional information to perceive others and express oneself, maintain social relationships, and handle challenges. Intermediately skilled at using emotional information in a meaningful way, to guide thinking and behaviors.• Collaborates closely with the product owner to enable them to manage the backlog. With moderate guidance, coordinates with the team to review and update work items. Facilitates discussions amongst the team during the sprint planning process to assist in identifying work items to be completed within each given sprint. Works with product owner and team to refine work items as needed when stakeholder requirements are clarified or evolve. At an intermediate level, able to perform these activities for teams practicing methods other than Scrum (e.g., Kanban).• With moderate guidance, liaises with customers, staff, product team members, project sponsors and/or stakeholders to manage expectations, communicate or gather project information, and/or ensure customer satisfaction. Intermediately skilled at explaining processes and concepts to technical and non-technical audiences. With moderate guidance, represents the unit in stakeholder meetings, coordinates with stakeholders to resolve questions, and participates on task forces and committee internal to the Board.• With moderate guidance, communicates with leaders across the organization to ensure transparency into delivery progress, challenges, and risks. Represents the team at broader planning and coordination sessions (e.g., Scrum of Scrums). With intermediate skill, develops communication strategies, plans, and messages for various audiences and gains necessary user buy-in for project initiatives. Works closely with the division’s communication, administration, and risk departments, and Board advisory groups to ensure initiatives are properly explained, reviewed, and communicated. Delivers engaging, informative, well-organized presentations.• Ensures project compliance with Board and division architecture standards, project management process standards, risk assessment processes, technology, privacy, and security compliance requirements (i.e., BISP, FISMA, Section 508), and controls and audit requirements (including SOX). Coordinates necessary reviews, manages preparation of all necessary documentation, and ensures the timely resolution of issues identified. Ensures all documentation is complete, current, and stored appropriately. With moderate guidance, coaches product team on established IT and corporate standards (e.g., security, privacy, quality, and architecture) to minimize operational, financial, and reputational risk. Effectively mitigates risk on moderately sized division projects.Position RequirementsAbout the Role and TeamThe Research Data and Technology Analysis (RDaTA) group in the Division of Financial Stability supports the mission of Financial Stability by providing data and technology solutions across our Policy and Research outcomes. The Scrum Master will play a pivotal role in RDaTA by acting as the bridge between the Division and our technologists, and by managing the flow of work across the team. The Scrum Master will align with Agile best practices to manage the RDaTA team backlog and workflow and will be the key point of contact for managing intake. Responsibilities for the RDaTA Scrum Master include, but are not limited to, the activities listed in the duties & responsibilities list above.QualificationsStrong Critical Thinking Skills: Requires resourcefulness and excellent critical thinking skills to analyze and recommend solutions for the various complex challenges that arise. Confers with manager or appropriate division staff on recommended solutions. Applies technical expertise, initiative, reliability, and judgment. Develops strategies for improving systems.• Strong Communications Skills: Contacts are with division staff at all levels and a considerable degree of coordination and contact with other units/sections/divisions may also be required. Must be able to explain to own team members or cross-divisions partners items of moderate levels of complexity. May interact directly with officers and managers to resolve certain issues. Utilizes skills in negotiation and persuasion in performing duties and influencing support for change. Must be able to construct clear and concise written work and applies a moderate understanding of grammar, sentence structure, and intended audience(s) to the process of writing and editing such work. Must work well on teams/group setting and be able to express oneself clearly, both orally and in writing. Possesses the ability to exercise judgement, initiative, and confidentiality in all areas of responsibilities.• Ability to Manage Complexity: Works on multiple tasks at a time that are of moderate complexity. A high degree of critical thinking and analytical skills is required in completing all tasks. Completes tasks and activities in a timely manner. Identifies new initiatives/projects that will further the work of the section or division.Required: To qualify for this role at each of the below salary grades, the candidate requires a bachelor’s degree in IT Engineering, Computer Science, Business Management, Mathematics, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, Information Sciences, or equivalent. Must have intermediate to advanced knowledge in one or more of the following areas: business acumen, technical support, critical thinking, project coordination, strategic communications, technical communication, business process improvement, system development lifecycle, consulting, Agile methodologies, and emotional intelligence. Must be able to work effectively with more senior staff. Must be able to support more senior staff with one or more of the following: technology assessment strategy, system development lifecycle, change management, and IT program management. In addition, the candidate must have the accompanying minimum years of experience:Overall Years ExperienceScrum Master-specific ExperienceFR-2543FR-2654Primary LocationDC-WashingtonEmployee StatusRegularOvertime StatusExemptJob TypeStandardRelocation ProvidedYesCompensation Grade LowFR PAY GRADE 25Compensation Grade HighFR PAY GRADE 26Minimum Salary$107,000Maximum Salary$165,000Posting DateNov 21, 2024