Squad Lead

A Squad Lead is part of the Squad Leadership within a Tribe. The Squad Lead has overall accountability for the success of the Squad, acting both as a servant leader and coach for the Tribe. The main responsibility of the Squad Leads are; removing blockers, ensuring progress can be made by team members by removing issues outside of their control, dealing with any organisational impediments, and protecting the squad from unnecessary distraction.  The squad lead is responsible for the day to day agile management activities such as running the Scrum process. The Squad Lead as a servant leader, has responsibility for upskilling the Squad in agile ways of working that enable the squad to self-organise, manage and deliver value using agile methodology.

Accountabilities

• Maximising Squad’s ability to deliver Sprint goals and contribute to Tribe OKRs.
• Squad level ceremonies integrity, consistency and effectiveness driving Squad value.
• Manages ‘scope and delivery’ related risks , issues and mitigations.
• Both the Squad as a whole and each individual Squad member performing as a servant leader.
• Supporting the Squad to live the following agile values: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness over internal politics in everything it does.

Responsibilities

• Ensuring Squad level ceremonies like Daily Huddles, Sprint Planning, Sprint Demos, Sprint Review etc. are conducted focusing on value return.
• Effective and consistent operational performance for the scrum process as the Scrum Master.
• Identifying, tracking, removing and escalating both blockers and impediments at Squad level to maintain both pace and flow of value.
• Ensuring compliance to Guardrails and Squad level activities.
• Owning and managing risks, issues and dependencies at Squad level.
• Managing and resolving intra-Squad dependencies by working with other Squad Leads within the Tribe.
• Collaborates effectively with other tribe members.
• Both timely and effective tracking and reporting on Squad’s progress against Sprint goals to Tribe Leadership.
• Managing Squad capacity, utilisation and velocity. Actively engages with other Squad Leads in the Tribe and Tribe leadership to discuss resourcing and utilisation strategies.
• Providing Chapter Lead with relevant input for each Squad member supporting each Squad member’s development and performance needs.

Key interactions

• Coaches Squad team members in Lean-Agile practices and mindsets.
• Support Product Owner(s) with Squad backlog management.
• Collaborates and consults with other Squad Leads in the Tribe to manage resourcing and dependencies.
• Supports Tribe leadership in optimising value flow for the Tribe.
• Works with the Chapter Lead to assist in the development of capability.

Knowledge and Experience Required

• Agile development techniques like: User Stories, Continuous Integration, ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development, TDD - Test-driven development, Continuous Testing, Pairing and Automated Testing
• Using Kanban Boards including the production of effective and timely squad performance monitoring reporting.
• Operating with an embedded SDLC process underpinned by Lean Agile practices.
• Project management fundamentals with the ability to apply principles, tools and techniques to develop/plan, manage or execute projects to ensure successful completion.
• Active Scrum Master experience, operating with software development team that was applying scrum mastery techniques, lean agile principles and practices resulting in effective ROI.
• Operating within heavily regulated environments including external regulated consumer products and service offerings.

Knowledge and experience in the use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc.

Desirable Professional Training Requirements 

• SAFe® 5 Agilist certification (Multiple Agile certifications can be used but most widely used is SAFe)
• Agile Management Foundation
• Scrum Master certification (CSM Certified Scrum Master, PSM – Professional Scrum Master)

Interview Process

There will be a one-stage interview process for this role (one 60-minute competency-based formal interview) unless we feel a further interview is required.  Interviews will take place early June.

Location

For Hybrid workers (within a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to work from the office twice a month.  For remote workers (outside of a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to attend the office a handful of times a year when required (i.e big meetings, workshops etc).

Salary, Benefits, and Work-Life Balance

We do not have a set salary for this position, as it will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience. We are happy to see CVs from all candidates who meet the requirements and will be happy to discuss the remuneration package.

At Admiral, we are proud to be a diverse business where we put our people and customers first. We have great benefits to ensure employees have a great work-life balance; it's one of the reasons we’re consistently voted one of the Sunday Times Best Big Companies to work for in the UK. We want you to have an element of freedom to define a working lifestyle that supports this, so accommodate flexible hours wherever possible.

All colleagues will receive 33 days holiday (including banks holidays) when they join us, and this will increase with length of service, up to a maximum of 38 days (including banks holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to five days of annual leave in addition to your allocation.

You can also view some of our other key benefits here.

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