HISTORIC ENGLAND: Scrum Master

Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Scrum Master to join our team.

The Scrum Master will facilitate scrum processes within a Development Team to ensure the effective delivery of software to the organisation. Encouraging agile thinking and ways of working, the Scrum master will mentor the team in how to apply agile principles to deliver incremental value to the business. They will empower the team to take ownership of its processes to improve performance and productivity.

What you will be doing

1. Manage the agile scrum process, supporting Product Owners and the development. team in their ambition to do everything possible to achieve the successful delivery of projects.
2. Leading and coaching the development team on how to use agile Scrum practices to get the most of out of self-organisation.
3. Remove impediments, either in person or by finding the best person to remove them.
4. Building a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis on problem solving.
5. Facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work.
6. Facilitating discussion, decision making and conflict resolution.
7. Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and producing and sharing information.
8. Supporting and educating Product Owners across multiple projects, especially with respect to refining and managing the product backlog.
9. Act as a champion for agile methodologies and approaches in the wider organisation with stakeholders at all levels.
10. Ensuring the progress of projects is adequately tracked and reported via tools such as burndown reports.
11. Reporting of progress, successes and issues to Software Development Manager, escalating to Head of IMT where necessary.
12. Supporting the Product Owner and Software Development Manager in the successful management of senior stakeholders.
13. Engaging with Business Improvement to help planning, forecasting and reporting against programmes of work.

What we are looking for:

• Training and certification in Scrum methodologies, such as Certified Scrum Master (CSM). 
• Strong facilitation and collaboration skills, including conducting effective meetings, resolving conflicts, and building team engagement.  
• Proven ability to drive continuous improvement initiatives within Agile teams, encouraging a culture of learning, adaptability, and empowerment through increased ownership. 
• Experience of successfully adopting and implementing Scrum practices within small teams and managing the dynamics between multiple product owners. 
• Experience in leading and coordinating the work of a multi-disciplinary development team, ensuring effective communication and alignment between the team and product owners. 
• Experience in presenting and communicating information and progress to senior management. 

We are committed to providing equality of opportunity for all. We will consider making reasonable adjustments for disabled people where necessary, to ensure this.

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 26% contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at ResourcingTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates week commencing 18th September via Microsoft Teams.

For a full copy of the JD, please click on the link below;

https://historicengland.org.uk/content/job-descriptions-hr/scrum-master-jd/