Agile Coach | 9 months | Inside IR35 £650 p/day

My client is leading an enterprise-wide transformation to gain competitive advantage through technology (Cloud, DevOps, micro-services) and large-scale adoption of Agile principles and methodologies best practices across the company. The UKI Agile Coach role is key to driving this agenda forward.

The role will bring their expertise to bear across 100+ product development teams and a wider set of business unit and functional teams across the UKI business.

The initial focus is on improving the product team-level ways of working as the foundation to accelerating their pace of innovation and improve the speed at which we can introduce new products and new capabilities into and across markets.

The Agile Coach will support a transformational change in product build mindset and will need to drive business unit cooperation to maximize technology reuse for scaling revenue opportunities. My client wants to delight customers with cutting-edge products exceeding the expectation of quality, service, reliability, and scalability, reduce the cost of operations to enable higher reinvestment in innovation, and make their product teams more productive and versatile. The Agile Coach will be instrumental in spearheading these initiatives and delivering these benefits.

Strategic

· Scan externally to look for innovations and trends identifying opportunities to guides the direction of practices, processes and behaviors to enhance organizational agility.

· Identify and understanding structural impediments to agility and engage stakeholders in strategic changes.

Operational

· Coach across the organization: Facilitate groups across organizational boundaries; Coach across different domains (technical, business, human resources, etc.); Mentor and advise at the enterprise level.

· Guide organisational agility: Assess the current state of the system; lead implementation of organisational change; guide the direction of practices, processes and behaviours to enhance organisational agility; manage an organisational impediment backlog; facilitate organisational level ceremonies to develop roadmaps and plan releases.

· Develop agile leaders: coach and develop leaders at all levels in the organisation to adopt an agile mindset; lead informal structures and support formal initiatives in support of business outcomes; change the people management paradigm from controlling tasks to leading systems.

· As a trusted expert: promote agile methodologies and best practices and easily understood standards; facilitate the standardisation and implementation of tooling; produce enterprise metrics and progress tracking.

Customer

· Champion a culture that achieves the business goals, delights customers and keeps consumer advocacy at the heart of everything that my client does.

· Ensure that good client / consumer outcomes are at the centre of decision making.

· Promote the development of client / consumer relationships and seek to exceed client’s expectations.

· Act in a manner conducive to the fair and reasonable treatment of all consumers irrespective of whether these are UK clients and consumers or not.

Leadership

· Lead employee engagement and openly encourage two-way communication flows

· Ensure training and competency plans are in place and that all team members complete required training in a timely manner.

Governance and Control

· Deliver and support KPIs, reporting and governance frameworks to ensure that coaching is maximising value and work is prioritised.

· Work with wider UKI leaders to regularly and pro-actively identify business risks and issues and ensure appropriate steps to mitigate risks are in place and timely remediation of issues

· Ensure fit-for-purpose risk management processes, practices and associated accountabilities and that these are embedded through training and communication.

· Ensure that the business areas operate to UK’s governance, risk, compliance and control frameworks

· Ensure that business area operates within UK’s policies in relation to information security, financial crime, outsourcing, complaints, vulnerable consumers, product development and other key areas of regulatory risk.

· Ensure clearly documented fit- for-purpose operational processes.

Regulatory

· Lead by example and drive adherence to all regulatory requirements and apply appropriate controls in the interests of customers.

· Deal with the FCA and with other regulators in an open and cooperative way and disclose appropriately any information or misconduct.

· Take reasonable steps to ensure that the business area complies with the relevant requirements and standards of the regulatory system.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

· Substantial experience in an Agile Coach role within a global organization

· Proficiency in Agile methodologies and tools (JIRA)

· Transforming and scaling organizations using LeSS and SAFe

· Coaching at an enterprise level in a mature Agile environment for a number of years

· Proven success in the adoption of Agile across the enterprise, shown through benefit realization metrics Qualifications

· Educated to degree-level or equivalent and continued professional development

• Strong stakeholder management skills; including making technical information simple, accessible and insightful for technology and non-technology decision makers
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills with a demonstrated ability to connect with people – an expert influencer, especially within a matrixed environment.
• Problem analysis and problem resolution at a strategic level; proven track record of consulting
• Track record of working in a fast paced, results driven roles within complex organisations – FinTech / Financial Services / Cloud Business Services preferred, but not required
• High level of professionalism and emotional intelligence
• Finger on the pulse, dedicated and flexible to business needs
• Relentless positivity and enthusiasm that helps teams ‘catch the spark’ of transformation and imagine new possibilities
• A mindset that thrives in ambiguity, can navigate the concrete and the abstract, and always constructively challenges the status quo
• A gift for compelling storytelling – in the conference room, the hallway, an email – that resonates with all audiences
• A personal style that embraces teamwork, cares deeply about the work and the team, and shares openly and honestly with all
• Cultural awareness