Senior Scrum Master (EIS Insurance - Immediate Joiner)

Scrum Master Expectations in PPOM Operating Model

The Scrum Master role in our PPOM (Product Platform Operating Model) should be a full-time commitment, ensuring agility, alignment, and delivery excellence across value streams. The ideal candidate must:

1. Full-Time Focus

• Scrum Master is not a part-time or shared responsibility; it requires dedicated attention to ensure continuous improvement and issue resolution.
• Must proactively remove impediments and not wait for escalations.

2. Cross-Value Stream Coordination

• Work across multiple value streams, ensuring dependencies between teams are well-managed.
• Facilitate collaboration between multiple Product Scrum Masters, ensuring alignment in execution and priorities.
• Engage with business, technology, and integration teams to maintain synchronization across initiatives.

3. Agile Excellence

• Champion Scrum and SAFe best practices while adapting to the unique needs of the PPOM model.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement through retrospectives and feedback loops.
• Ensure teams adhere to agile principles while delivering business value.

4. Delivery & Execution Focus

• Support teams in achieving predictable delivery, ensuring roadblocks are addressed proactively.
• Align with product leadership and engineering teams to balance speed, quality, and technical feasibility.
• Assist in backlog refinement, prioritization, and ensuring readiness for upcoming iterations.

5. Strategic & Operational Influence

• Work closely with leadership to drive improvements in team performance and value delivery.
• Foster an environment where teams can make data-driven decisions based on agile metrics.
• Serve as a bridge (but we have PO and BA/BSA) between technology and business stakeholders, ensuring transparency on progress and challenges.

This role is critical in ensuring that the PPOM model operates efficiently, and requires a highly engaged, proactive, and strategic Scrum Master who understands both agile execution and cross-team collaboration.

Key Responsibilities & Ceremonies

1. Sprint Ceremonies & Agile Process Facilitation

• Scrum (Daily Stand-ups):
• Ensure teams have a structured 15-minute check-in focused on progress, blockers, and dependencies.
• Identify and escalate impediments that require broader alignment or leadership intervention.
• Grooming (Backlog Refinement):
• Drive structured backlog discussions to refine stories, clarify requirements, and estimate effort.
• Ensure business stakeholders and teams align on priorities, with an emphasis on acceptance criteria and technical feasibility.
• Sprint Planning:
• Guide teams in selecting stories based on prioritization, dependencies, and capacity constraints.
• Ensure backlog is well-groomed and teams are set up for successful execution.
• Sprint Review / Demo:
• Facilitate reviews with business stakeholders, leadership, and dependent teams.
• Ensure feedback loops are incorporated into future sprints.
• Retrospective Facilitation:
• Encourage data-driven retrospectives, focusing on what went well, what can improve, and concrete action items.
• Ensure follow-ups on past retrospective action items to drive continuous improvement.

2. Capacity & Reporting Alignment

• Capacity Reporting:
• Maintain visibility into team bandwidth, allocation, and constraints.
• Ensure sprint commitments match available capacity and adjustments are made for PTO, onboarding, and production support impacts.
• ART Sync Reporting (Agile Release Train Sync):
• Represent the teams sprint status, blockers, and dependencies at ART Sync meetings.
• Communicate cross-team impacts, ensuring leadership has clear insights into risk areas.
• Ensure alignment between Product, Tech, and Integrations teams on release timelines and deliverables.

3. Dependency Management (Upstream & Downstream)

• Upstream Dependencies:
• Identify work that other teams must deliver before our teams can proceed.
• Ensure alignment with Product Owners and dependent Scrum Masters to track dependencies proactively.
• Escalate delays and drive solutions when upstream teams fail to deliver on time.
• Downstream Dependencies:
• Work with consuming teams to ensure our deliverables meet their expectations and timelines.
• Communicate changes proactively to avoid surprises.
• Facilitate handoffs between development, QA, and integration teams for seamless execution.

4. Cross-Value Stream Collaboration & Execution

• Work across multiple value streams, ensuring teams are not working in silos.
• Ensure alignment with Product Scrum Masters to synchronize roadmaps, priorities, and execution cadences.
• Surface risks early and ensure leadership has visibility into major bottlenecks.

Expectation: Proactive & Strategic Leadership

This Scrum Master role is not just about facilitating ceremoniesit is about driving execution, alignment, and continuous improvement across value streams in our PPOM model. The right candidate will own team health, enable transparency, and drive delivery outcomes while fostering a collaborative and efficient agile environment.