Agile Coach

An Agile Coach undertakes a pivotal role in any Agile delivery or change - often (but not always) operating under the guises of "Scrum Master".  Scrum Masters should always be Agile Coaches, but Agile coaches are highly likely to also operate beyond the confines of the Scrum Team centered role. 

Whilst we are currently operating on a hybrid working pattern, there will be a need for you to work occasionally from one of our local offices so ideally you would need to be located to Guildford, Gloucester, Leeds, Manchester or London

Specifically:

• Coaches help individuals, teams and the wider organisation to understand what it means to implement, adopt and embrace an Agile mindset. Agile Coaches come armed with a deep knowledge and understanding of various Agile tools, techniques and frameworks to guide a team or organisation on its journey to unlock and achieve its full potential using Agile methodologies.
• Agile Coaches guide, coach and mentor teams and organisations to embrace Agile ways of working to help them thrive in a complex world. Agile Coaches extol the virtues of an Agile mindset by being Agile, not just doing Agile.
• Agile Coaches ensure that teams and organisations understands and adheres to Agile theory and practices. The Agile Coach facilitates stakeholder collaboration, removing barriers between stakeholders and the team and/or organisation. The Agile Coach helps everyone to understand and enact an empirical approach for complex work to maximize the value created by the team.
• At a team-level, the Agile Coach is accountable for the team’s effectiveness. The Agile Coach helps the team to perform at its highest level as a whole team and supporting the process to enable it to successfully deliver value. They do this by promoting self-organisation within the team, causing the removal of any impediments to the team’s progress and facilitating the team’s events and ceremonies.
• Agile Coaches support healthy team dynamics by creating psychologically safe environments where transparency and trust are catalysts for change and continuous improvement.
• The role of an Agile Coach is for the most part defined by a person’s character. This is a people-centric role, it requires high levels of Emotional Intelligence and the development of soft-skills that can be difficult to learn.
• Agile Coaches are constantly looking to develop their own skills and knowledge, whilst sharing those experiences to shape and evolve the Agile mindset of an organisation to create a sense of community.  

An Agile Coach should be:

• Enthusiastic about Agile – must have a passion for Agile ways of working;
• Communicative and Personable – must be personable, approachable and comfortable communicating with team members and stakeholders;
• Situationally Aware – must be able to utilise Emotional Intelligence to best effect;
• A Coach and a Mentor – must be an active listener, use powerful questions and know when to switch between stances;
• Facilitative – must be able to both lead and support the team;
• Competent in conflict management and resolution – must be able to facilitate discussion and consider alternatives or different approaches;
• Assertive – must be able to ensure Agile practices, values and ways of working are adhered to, must be able to be a voice of reason and authority and make the tough calls where needed;
• Focused on the delivery of value – Through the lens of team efficiveness, working with other stakeholders to maximise the delivery of value from the team’s endeviours
• Seeking Continual improvement – must strive to be a high-performing team, continually looking for opportunities to learn new tools and techniques, whilst seizing opportunities to learn from experience;
• Promoting team empowerment – encourages and demands self-organisation from the team;
• Promoting team transparency – must promote a culture of disclosure and transparency both within the team and to the wider business about development and progress to grow business trust.  

Key Accountabilities:

• Enabling the team or organisation to transition to Agile ways of working, by empowering, guiding, coaching and mentoring it to develop its Agile mindset, values and principles;
• Creating a trusted and safe environment where issues and problems can be raised without fear of judgement, blame or retribution, with an emphasis on learning from both positive and negative experiences;
• Promoting self-organisation within the team by facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work;
• Holding a mirror to the team or organisation with a view to continuous improvement, helping them to figure out where and how they can improve;
• Removing impediments to allow the team to focus on delivering value or guiding the team to remove impediments by finding the right people to remove the impediment;
• Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution;
• Helping the team define and adapt its processes to maximise performance;
• Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information;
• Taking on administrative, coaching, mentoring and leadership roles that make Agile development possible;
• Give rise to the gathering and processing of relevant metrics to expose bottlenecks and support continuous improvement;
• Finding opportunities to celebrate wins – find small wins in projects and communicate them to the wider business – build confidence and be a champion for Agile ways of working;
• Assessing the Agile Maturity of the team or organisation and coaching them to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for both the team and organisation;
• Sharing knowledge and experience with other Agile Coaches and engage with the wider Agile Community to generate and capture new ideas.  

Three key behaviours to emphasis are:

• Collaboration – Drives high standards of performance through cooperation and teamwork
• Adaptability – Responds to change with positive action
• Develops people – Creates an inclusive workplace in which all individuals thrive and give their best  

Life at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence 

We are embracing Hybrid Working. This means you and your colleagues may be working in different locations, such as from home, another BAE Systems office or client site, some or all of the time, and work might be going on at different times of the day. By embracing technology, we can interact, collaborate and create together, even when we’re working remotely from one another. Hybrid Working allows for increased flexibility in when and where we work, helping us to balance our work and personal life more effectively, and enhance wellbeing.

Diversity and inclusion are integral to the success of BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. We are proud to have an organisational culture where employees with varying perspectives, skills, life experiences and backgrounds – the best and brightest minds – can work together to achieve excellence and realise individual and organisational potential. 

About BAE Systems Digital Intelligence

BAE Systems Digital Intelligence is home to 4,800 digital, cyber and intelligence experts. We work collaboratively across 16 countries to collect, connect and understand complex data, so that governments, nation states, armed forces and commercial businesses can unlock digital advantage in the most demanding environments.

Launched in 2022, Digital Intelligence is part of BAE Systems, and has a rich heritage in helping to defend nations and businesses around the world from advanced threats.

Division overview: Functions

At BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, we pride ourselves in being a leader in the cyber defence industry, and the business could not operate without all the dedicated work of our Functions teams. From Finance & Operations through Communications & Marketing, to HR and Site Operations and more, our Functions teams enable our divisions to implement ground-breaking digital transformations and crucial defence software.

As part of Functions, you will be supporting and partnering with our global business from the backline, being a strategic advisor within your specialist area, and ensuring the business runs smoothly and efficiently. We all have a role to play in defending our clients; and this is yours.