This is a hands-on coaching role. You will work directly with management, Product and Service Owners, Scrum Masters, and team members — coaching leaders on Agile and product ownership while working shoulder-to-shoulder with teams on their day-to-day execution and their ADO boards. Teams range widely in Agile maturity, and several are not traditional software-development teams.
On-site in Lansing two days per week; remainder remote.
AGILE LEADERSHIP AND COACHING
- Serve as the lead Agile Coach across multiple teams with varying Agile and Azure DevOps maturity
- Assess current Agile practices and identify opportunities to improve team maturity, consistency, and adoption
- Coach teams on Agile principles, Scrum and Kanban practices, backlog management, prioritization, estimation, planning, and continuous improvement
- Facilitate or coach teams through sprint and iteration planning, backlog refinement, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews and demos, and retrospectives
- Help teams move from using Agile terminology to consistently applying Agile practices in their daily work
- Identify impediments to Agile adoption and work with leadership on practical solutions
PRODUCT OWNER AND LEADERSHIP COACHING
- Coach managers and Product/Service Owners on effectively performing the Product Owner role
- Improve how work is defined and prioritized, how backlogs are built and maintained, and how epics, features, user stories, tasks, and acceptance criteria are written
- Help establish clear business priorities, manage stakeholder expectations, and measure outcomes and team performance
- Provide leadership with recommendations for improving Agile maturity and sustaining long-term adoption
AZURE DEVOPS ADOPTION
- Partner with Azure DevOps specialists and client teams to establish and mature ADO boards
- Coach teams on effective use of Boards, Backlogs, epics/features/stories/tasks, Queries, Dashboards, work-item management, and sprint and iteration planning
- Ensure ADO configuration and processes support each team's Agile operating model
- Establish consistent standards and best practices across multiple ADO teams
BACKLOG DEVELOPMENT AND TEAM EXECUTION
- Facilitate working sessions to build, organize, and refine team backlogs
- Help teams translate business objectives into actionable work items
- Improve story quality, acceptance criteria, estimation, prioritization, and definition of done
- Establish practical processes teams can continue using independently after the coaching engagement
- Help teams use metrics and dashboards to improve transparency, predictability, and decision-making
AGILE MATURITY AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
- Evaluate the Agile maturity of individual teams and leadership groups
- Develop actionable recommendations based on each team's maturity level
- Identify training and coaching needs for managers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, champions, and team members
- Establish measurable Agile maturity goals and track progress
- Help develop longer-term coaching, training, and adoption roadmaps
- Build internal Agile champions capable of sustaining the practices after the engagement
Requirements
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE
- 8+ years of experience working in Agile delivery environments
- 5+ years of Agile coaching, Agile leadership, Scrum Master, Product Owner coaching, or Agile transformation experience
- Demonstrated experience coaching multiple teams simultaneously
- Strong hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, specifically ADO Boards
- Experience establishing and managing Agile backlogs within Azure DevOps
- Strong understanding of Scrum, Kanban, Agile product management, backlog management, user story development, estimation and planning, Agile metrics, and continuous improvement
- Experience coaching Product Owners, Scrum Masters, managers, and senior leaders
- Demonstrated ability to assess team maturity and create practical improvement plans
- Strong facilitation skills and experience leading workshops with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Able to work on-site in Lansing, Michigan two days per week
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Agile coaching engagements within large enterprises or government and public-sector organizations
- Experience implementing Agile practices with teams that are not traditional software-development teams — business, operations, security, compliance, asset management, or shared services
- Enterprise Agile transformations or Agile Centers of Excellence
- Experience developing Agile maturity assessments and multi-year adoption roadmaps
- Familiarity with DevOps concepts and the relationship between Agile delivery and DevOps practices
- Certifications such as Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC), SAFe Agilist, PMI-ACP, or an Agile Coaching certification