Job purpose

M&S is on a journey to shift to becoming a more product-led organisation that embraces business agility to create great, seamless omnichannel experiences for our customers. To support us on this journey, we are seeking a growth oriented and passionate coach to join our team and play a pivotal role in the evolution and maturity of lean, agile and product at M&S, working closely with teams and leadership alike, across both technical and non-technical areas of the organisation.

As a M&S Agile Coach, you will take a hands-on approach to accelerate us on the journey from project to product, working with teams directly to help solve their problems, delivering training tailored to specific roles

Description

This is an exciting opportunity to join a leading British retailer that serves millions of customers around the world and to lead significant change across the organisation following the launch of its new strategy focused on creating business agility with a steadfast focus on improving the omnichannel customer experience.

In this role you will be responsible for shaping and driving adoption of agile practices and acting as a key ambassador for the move from project to product across over 100 agile delivery teams, Delivery leads, Product Managers, and business partners. You will be responsible for championing the use of metrics to supervise and measure the success of our adoption of a product-led approach and coach colleagues to build an agile attitude focused on continuous improvement and customer and business value.

We are looking for someone that lives Agile, is passionate about making a real difference to our people and the business and is eager to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in to inspire change.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Champion and drive agile approaches and product ways of working throughout the organisation, acting as a role model and coach to individuals, teams, leadership and business partners on agile, product and scaled agile standard methodologies to drive the strategic vision from Project to Product

Provide practical contextual and tailored coaching guidance, both technical and non-technical, to help M&S adopt and embed new ways of working aligned to the needs of the customer and business

Establish and ensure adoption of standards, ceremonies for agile ways of working

Own the assessment and enhancement of product and team maturity through conducting maturity assessments and developing quarterly plans with teams and partners to drive improvements; work with teams to surface problems and support in resolving them.

Support creating agile transformation roadmaps, driving stronger and deeper agile understanding and results throughout the organisation with defining outcomes

Collaborate with the People and Capability Development team to develop, deliver and/or coordinate with external providers to provision training and workshops on agile and product practices

Develop learning materials and run Lunch and Learns/Brown bag talks to over 200+ people

Challenge existing processes and remove impediments to achieving improved agile adoption, demonstrating fast feedback cycles to validate the approach

Supervise and communicate progress of key transformation metrics to partners (tech and business leaders)

Keep up to date with industry trends relating to Business Agility, Product and DevOps and maintain an involvement in industry agile communities to continuously bring new methods and ideas to the organisation.

Assist with establishing communities of practice and developing a culture of continuous improvement across teams.

Collaborate with the wider Tech Transformation team to align on initiatives, and support in shaping new ways forwards.

Key Experience

Essential

Deep expertise in and working experience of Agile Methodologies and practices including Scrum, Kanban and DevOps in a Product-Led and Delivery Organisation

Extensive experience coaching and mentoring individuals and groups and facilitating training sessions across team, program and leadership levels (technical and non-technical audiences)

Understanding of engineering practices like BDD, XP and Agile Testing, Continuous Integration and Continuous delivery and able to facilitate, understand, and contribute to technical discussions

Strong and effective communication skills and the ability to apply them to real life scenarios

Genuine passion for helping others grow through coaching and mentoring

Passion to kickstart and re-ignite new and existing teams into new ways of working where one size doesn’t always fit all

Solid understanding of agile tools and software e.g., Jira, Jira Align, Confluence, Rally, Miro and Mentimeter

Demonstrated ability to influence change and resolve issues at the leadership level.

Strong problem-solving skills that can be applied to resolve complex business and technical challenges.

Experience developing and tracking agile transformation metrics and using them to inform roadmaps.

Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical information in a condensed manner to various partners verbally and in writing.

Adaptability and a willingness to learn new skills, technologies, and frameworks.

Desirable

Prior experience working in the Retail Industry

Bachelor’s degree

proven ability working in an agile delivery environment

proven experience working as an agile coach or a comparable role

Agile certification (e.g. SAFe, Scrum, LeSS, DAD)

M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact. We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.  We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process. If you consider yourself to have a disability or learning difficulty which means you are unable to complete the application process online, please get in touch either by phone on 0345 300 3725 or by email recruitment.online@marksandspencer.com so we can make alternative arrangements for you.

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