Senior Scrum Master

Let's Write Africa's Story Together!

Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

Knowledge of agile methodology and frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile (SAFe) etc. so that they can explain other methodologies to motivate their team if needed.

Professional facilitation skills to empower the team through facilitation.

Understand the value of team metrics and keep track of them to drive team performance.

Stakeholder Management, Negotiation & Communication Skills.

Empower the team through coaching.

JIRA/Confluence experience (or other relevant tools). Making work visible though a Sprint board.

Facilitate the Agile Scrum process and ensure that teams adhere to its principles and practices. Manage the teams' workflow and ensure that they have all the resources they need to complete their work. Work closely with the Product Owner to ensure that the product backlog is well-defined, prioritized, and refined. Lead scrum ceremonies such as daily stand-up meetings, sprint planning, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. Identify and remove impediments that may prevent the teams from achieving their goals and work towards continuous improvement of the teams and processes.

ResponsibilitiesAgile Development Team Facilitation

Lead Scrum ceremonies, remove obstacles, and facilitate problem-solving, collaboration, and conflict resolution to enable the most effective work delivery by development teams on medium-sized projects.

Agile Release Planning

Plan and replan software releases for large projects or programs as they are produced to ensure timely updates and to deliver the planned benefits as early as possible in the project or program.

Agile Backlog Management

Review the backlog of work for a small project and reprioritize the work and deployment of project resources to reduce costs and increase the value of the work delivered to the business.

Culture of Innovation

Define the execution plan to disseminate innovative capabilities across the businesses, helping people develop these competencies and enabling them to innovate through solutions such as idea generation platforms, jam sessions, and hackathons.

Digital Strategy/Transformational Projects Execution

Lead execution of the digital road map, establishing and managing business processes, programs, and projects, resource allocation, key performance indicators (KPIs), and governance activities.

Project Risk and Issue Management

Manage identification of risks, issues, dependencies, and constraints associated with the project, escalating these matters where appropriate. Where necessary, develop, agree on, and implement solutions to overcome these concerns.

Data Collection and Analysis

Collate and analyze data using preset tools, methods, and formats. Involves working independently.

Work Scheduling and Allocation

Develop short- or medium-term work schedules in order to achieve planned commitments. Approve overtime or use additional resources as needed.

Project Resource Management

Manage the deployment of project resources, proactively managing project costs, providing forecasts, and presenting variances with narrative at appropriate review points to ensure effective utilization.

Project Planning

Produce workstream or project plans, ensuring that all activities are identified, are appropriately organized to deliver project objectives, and comply with the organization's project management framework.

Performance Management

Develop and propose own performance objectives; take appropriate actions to ensure achievement of agreed objectives, using the organization's performance management systems to improve personal performance. Or manage and report on team performance; set appropriate performance objectives for direct reports or project/account team members and hold people accountable for achieving them, taking appropriate corrective action where necessary to ensure the achievement of team/personal objectives.

Personal Capability Building

Develop own capabilities by participating in assessment and development planning activities as well as formal and informal training and coaching; gain or maintain external professional accreditation, where relevant, to improve performance and fulfill personal potential. Maintain an in-depth understanding of technology, external regulation, and industry best practices through ongoing education, attending conferences, and reading specialist media.

Minimum Requirements for this role :

• 5+ years' experience as a Scrum Master, with at least 2 years in a Senior Scrum Master or lead role applying Scrum & Agile Practices in infrustructure or IT operations environments
• Deep understanding of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or LeSS) and experience applying them in regulated, high-availability environments.
• Proven experience leading cross-functional agile teams delivering cloud-native solutions (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Strong understanding of infrastructure technologies and concepts – such as cloud services (e.g., AWS, Azure), networking, servers, storage, and ITIL processes, enabling effective facilitation and collaboration with engineering and support teams.
• Demonstrated ability to remove complex impediments across both tech and business domains.
• Strong facilitation of all Scrum ceremonies, along with servant leadership and team coaching skills.
• Proficient in agile metrics tracking (velocity, throughput, lead time, etc.) and using data to improve delivery performance.
• Skilled in agile tooling such as Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps, or Rally.
• Comfortable working with DevOps teams, CI/CD practices, and modern software delivery pipelines.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization

Skills

Adaptive Thinking, Agile Project Management, Backlog Management, Budget Management, Change Management, Oral Communications, Prioritization, Project Communications Management, Project Estimations, Project Performance Management (PM), Project Quality Assurance, Project Resource Management, Project Schedule Management, Project Scope Management

Competencies

Business InsightCollaboratesCommunicates EffectivelyCultivates InnovationDecision QualityDirects WorkDrives EngagementDrives Results

Education

NQF Level 9 – Masters

Closing Date

21 May 2025 , 23:59

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

The Old Mutual Story!