Senior Agile Transformation Coach
USA
ABOUT US
Cognizant is one of the world's leading professional services companies, transforming clients' business, operating, and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build, and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant, a member of the NASDAQ-100, is ranked 195 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com.
COGNIZANT CONSULTING
Within Cognizant is Cognizant Consulting, a global consulting organization delivering strategic and domain consulting through industry and technology expertise. With over 6,000 consultants worldwide, Cognizant offers high-value consulting services that improve business performance and operational productivity, lower operational expenses and enhance overall performance. Clients draw upon our deep industry expertise, program and change management capabilities, and analytical objectivity to help improve business productivity, drive technology-enabled business transformation and increase shareholder value. We provide a number of Business/IT Consulting Services including Business Strategy, IT Strategy & Roadmap Development, Process Re-Engineering & Transformation, Enterprise Architecture & Technology Selection, and Domain Solutions. The Cognizant Consulting team is a high performing organization that is continually expanding our client base and increasingly being recommended by analysts such as Forrester and Gartner. And we’re growing!
The Role
We are seeking agile consultant to join our Consulting Practice. This not your ordinary technology role! We are looking for technically proficient leaders who have that “special sauce”, who bring vision and grit, who can work directly with clients in the F100, driving to outcomes that years ago were not thought possible. This team is about using cutting-edge technology and best practices to drive the best type of business outcomes. We’re looking for someone who can translate their technical knowledge into products that deliver business value and delight our clients. We go beyond the technical framing and take it a step further to drive customer-focused results that are changing the world.
In this role, you’ll have the support of a seasoned team who will support your ambitions. You’ll have the chance to learn and to lead. You’ll be a strategic thinker and you’ll work directly with executives who are industry leaders in insurance, digital, customer service, and sit across other industry segments. You’ll get to work on a variety of engagements, which means that there is always an opportunity learn something new. The expectations are high but so is the level of teamwork that you can expect to have with your team. What we accomplish, we do together, and we are looking for the next member of this high-achieving team to come and add to our shared success.
Our strength is built on our ability to work together. Our diverse backgrounds create perspective and new ways of thinking. We are looking for someone who thrives in this setting and is inspired to craft relevant solutions through true collaboration, passion, and teamwork. Sound like you? Join us!
Responsibilities
This role will drive team evolution in a digital ecosystem through the establishment of a High Performing Agile Team(s) applying Agile & Lean practices.
Agile Consultant Responsibilities
- Exhibit the behaviors of a Lean-Agile Leader with a Lean-Agile Mindset
- Help the team embrace Agile core values, adopt/apply Agile principles, & implement Agile practices
- Know how to Facilitate events such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospectives, etc.
- Enable team members in their roles & coach them on best practices as a Product Owner or Team Member
- Able to cover multiple roles as required such as an RTE, Product Owner, Scrum Master or Coach
- Monitor, make visible, & coach on best practices with the artifacts for Scrum (Backlog, Burn Down, etc.)
- Makes visible, facilitates, and supports the team in identifying, addressing and eliminating impediments
- Act a team facilitator to continuously improve team performance in areas of quality, predictability, flow, and velocity
- Support the Product Owner in their efforts to manage the backlog and guide the team while facilitating a healthy team dynamic with respect to priorities and scope
- Help team create increments of value each iteration and achieving daily and sprint goals
- Coordinates with other teams to support the team’s efforts to continuously improve communications and relationships with other teams.
- Supports estimating – Guides the team in establishing normalized estimates and helps the team understand how to estimate Stories by decomposing Features.
- Able to work in an advisory capacity on short assignments covering assessments of People, Process and Tools
- Technologist who can quickly learn new technologies such as Jira Align, AgilityHealth and Kaiburr
- Work on a team to help drive and execute transformation plans
Consulting Responsibilities
- Create new insights that will drive business growth and profitability in the short and long term
- Work collaboratively with clients to develop a roadmap based on the client’s transformational initiatives and goals
- Present point of view and discuss merits of recommendations with technologists and leaders
- Create business cases and support planning to achieve the future state
- Qualitatively and quantitatively assess both business and technology challenges
- Define success factors and definition of deliverables with estimation in the creation of client contracts and proposals
Experience
- Experience working with teams to adopt Agile disciplines with a focus on building and managing product backlogs – the transition from traditional requirements to user stories
- IT consulting experience passionate to align technology strategies to business objectives fostering the belief that IT should be delivered as a service.
- Collaborate in processes to drive continuous improvement
- Contribute to the transformation roadmap working business owners to envision a new way of working
- Create training artifacts and provide training/coaching clients in the adoption of Agile disciplines
- Champion in evaluating team progress, inspect and evaluate Lean-Agile progress through each iteration, accountable for each stage of developmental progress.
- Understanding of modern IT systems architecture with experience working with solution architects and development teams to manage IT ecosystems
- Understanding of software development, product development, & process improvement
- Experience working in SAFe Agile framework, in-depth knowledge of Scrum and Agile Software Development Methodology
- Demonstrated maturity in the areas of communication, conflict resolution, process constraints and problem solving
Qualifications
Preferred Skills
- A positive, collaborative attitude and the proven ability to work and lead in a team-based environment to deliver flawless results for clients, thrive in transparency
- Flexibility to take on non-traditional & adjacent roles with potential expand your knowledge breadth & meet business needs.
- Demonstrated ability to work directly with technical and product teams demonstrating a strong command of Agile frameworks, technology, values and principles
- Experience with Agile collaboration tools (Jira, Confluence, Slack, Miro, Mural, etc.)
- Understanding of backlog tracking, burndown metrics, velocity, and task definition.
- Experience transforming teams and organizations from waterfall to Agile methodologies
- Ability to negotiate, influence, and collaborate to build successful relationships
- Able to resolve conflicts, facilitate discussions, propose viable alternatives, and consider different approaches.
- Strong analytical, problem solving, time management, relationship building and influencing skills.
- Demonstrated ability to coordinate cross-functional work teams’ delivery
- Demonstrated Agile execution discipline, bias toward action
- STEM background or equivalent can quickly learn new technologies
- Experience using Agilityhealth radars, Kaiburr and other assessment SaaS platforms
- Experience configuring and standardizing ALM tools like Jira and ADO
- Experience building metrics dashboards
Years of Experience Required
- 8+ years of previous hands-on experience with agile roles in mature DevOps environments
- 7+ years of experience in software development and/ or enterprise lifecycle management
- 6+ years of experience in consulting
- Excellent communication, negotiation, influencing, collaboration and time management skills are required
- Experience communicating with senior executives to achieve buy-in to major changes by presenting fact-based evidence to show why urgent change is required
- Listens, supports, engages and encourages team suggestions and input to achieve excellent results.
- Experience designing and leading Scrum of Scrums a plus
- Agile Certifications or equivalent experience – example – SAFe, Scruminc., DAD, LeSS, Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org
Work Authorization
- Cognizant will only consider applicants for this position who are legally authorized to work in the United States without company sponsorship (H-1B, L-1B, L-1A, etc.)
Salary and Other Compensation:
The annual salary for this position is between $131,880-$203,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.
This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program and stock awards, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.
Benefits: Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:
- Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
- Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
- 401(k) plan and contributions
- Long-term/Short-term Disability
- Paid Parental Leave
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Disclaimer: The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.
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