Senior Agilist - Portfolio & Agile Enablement

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Position Summary 

The Sr. Agilist is responsible for working with and coaching multiple and/or larger-scale teams using Agile-based tools and ways of working. Incumbents work with greater independence and lead efforts that drive solutions to issues impacting multiple teams. 

This role works closely with colleagues, Product Owners, team members, communities of practice, stakeholders, and leadership to deliver value to their teams and the Duke Energy community. 

The Sr. Agilist is an Agile discipline-agnostic practitioner, helping teams apply the Agile tools and practices that make the most sense for their needs rather than being committed to a specific discipline such as Scrum or Kanban. 

In addition, this role willserve as Scrum Master for the Common Intake team, enabling an effective, transparent, and continuously improving intake process. The Sr. Agilist will facilitate collaboration across the team and its stakeholders, support prioritization and refinement of incoming demand, improve visibility into the flow of work, and coach the Common Intake team toward greater maturity, accountability, and self-organization. 

Responsibilities 

Delivering Agility 

• Guides team maturity by introducing new concepts and disciplines for value delivery. 

• Coaches and facilitates development teams through all aspects of the Agile process, including release planning, sprint planning, daily standups, product demos, backlog refinement, Scrum of Scrums meetings when using Scrum, and retrospectives. 

• Serves as Scrum Master for the Common Intake team, facilitating team planning, daily coordination, backlog refinement, reviews, retrospectives, and other working sessions necessary to advance intake work. 

• Partners with the Common Intake Product Owner and stakeholders to maintain a well-defined, prioritized, and actionable intake backlog aligned with business value and organizational priorities. 

• Facilitates refinement of incoming requests to help ensure work is sufficiently understood, appropriately scoped, and ready for evaluation and prioritization. 

• Proactively prevents potential roadblocks and barriers. 

• Proactively manages dependencies and risks. 

• Demonstrates ownership by building and capitalizing on inter-team relationships for managing dependencies and risks. 

• Identifies and proactively addresses bottlenecks, impediments, dependencies, and process gaps that slow intake decisions or transition of approved work into delivery. 

• Promotes transparency into intake demand, work in progress, blockers, dependencies, decisions, and the overall flow of work through the intake process. 

• Demonstrates appropriate judgment on when it is time to help the team pivot. This can include, but is not limited to, changing priorities and technology changes. 

• Identifies and addresses areas where psychological safety concerns exist. 

• Demonstrates a proven track record of success in Agile product delivery, knowledge of best practices, and the ability to provide leadership oversight and planning of development activities. 

• Provides metrics to support data-driven decision-making and delivery of value. 

• Uses Agile and flow-based measures to identify improvement opportunities and increase transparency into the effectiveness of the Common Intake process. 

• Demonstrates the ability to navigate various layers of the organization, identify allies, and coordinate with other teams to improve delivery of value to the customer. 

• Facilitates cross-functional collaboration among requestors, Product, Architecture, Technology, Delivery, and other stakeholders involved in evaluating and advancing Common Intake requests. 

Coaching Agility 

• Works with key stakeholders to address anti-patterns that impede agility. 

• Helps team members embrace a deeper understanding of their roles and expectations. 

• Coaches value-driven backlog prioritization techniques. 

• Coaches the Common Intake team on effective backlog management, value-driven prioritization, flow of work, working agreements, and clear readiness criteria. 

• Helps the Common Intake team and stakeholders identify and address behaviors or processes that create bottlenecks, competing priorities, excessive work in progress, or unclear ownership. 

• Coaches the Common Intake team toward greater self-organization, accountability, and ownership of the end-to-end intake process. 

• Provides space for and encourages teams to self-organize while helping them develop the skills and practices needed to operate effectively. 

Consult & Advise 

• Helps develop product-level strategies, primarily at the team level. 

• Understands and contributes to roadmapping. 

• Partners with Product Owners and stakeholders to improve the Common Intake operating model, including prioritization practices, demand visibility, readiness criteria, and movement of approved work toward delivery. 

• Helps establish and reinforce clear intake criteria, working agreements, prioritization practices, and definitions of readiness to promote consistency and transparency across incoming requests. 

• Advises stakeholders on opportunities to streamline intake processes, reduce unnecessary handoffs, and improve the flow of demand from initial request through disposition or delivery. 

Cultural Growth & Influence 

• Fosters collaboration and communication outside of the immediate team. 

• Challenges the status quo and identifies opportunities for continuous improvement. 

• Contributes to Communities of Practice (CoP) and Centers of Excellence (CoE). 

• Mentors peers. 

• Facilitates continuous improvement of the Common Intake operating model by challenging unnecessary complexity, delays, handoffs, and other practices that impede efficient decision-making. 

• Builds relationships across organizational boundaries to improve alignment between Common Intake and downstream teams responsible for planning and delivery. 

• Demonstrates an "others focused" mindset and actively practices emotional and situational intelligence. 

• Creates space for teams to self-organize and demonstrates a willingness to be vulnerable. 

Agile Training 

• Contributes to Agile learning content. 

• Shares lessons learned and effective practices from Common Intake to help strengthen Agile, intake, prioritization, and flow practices across teams. 

Required / Basic Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree. 

• In addition to the required degree, four (4) or more years of related work experience. 

• In lieu of a Bachelor's degree and four (4) or more years of related work experience, High School/GED and six (6) or more years of related work experience. 

Desired Qualifications 

• Excellent written, verbal, and electronic communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly across delivery teams, business partners, product leaders, and senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated servant leadership through coaching, facilitation, mentoring, volunteer leadership, or similar experiences.
• Interacts effectively with others at all levels of the organization and builds productive relationships across business and technology functions.
• Makes persuasive and informative presentations, translating complex intake, prioritization, dependency, and delivery considerations into clear recommendations and next steps.
• Experience facilitating cross-functional teams and complex stakeholder discussions, particularly where requests span multiple teams, value streams, capabilities, or business priorities.
• Experience serving as a Scrum Master or agile facilitator for an intake, portfolio, product, or cross-functional team, including facilitating team ceremonies, working sessions, decision-making forums, and follow-up activities.
• Experience coaching teams on backlog management, refinement, prioritization, flow, work-in-progress management, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to help the Common Intake team establish and continuously improve a consistent intake process, including clarifying requests, identifying needed information, facilitating evaluation, and helping work progress toward appropriate decisions and next steps.
• Experience facilitating prioritization and trade-off discussions when multiple requests compete for capacity, funding, sequencing, or organizational attention.
• Ability to identify and surface dependencies, risks, impediments, and decision points that may affect the movement of work through the intake process.
• Experience operating in environments with multiple teams, dependencies, competing priorities, and stakeholders, while maintaining transparency around work status and flow.
• Ability to use metrics and team insights to identify bottlenecks, opportunities for improvement, and areas where the intake process can become more efficient and predictable.
• Demonstrated ability to create an environment of shared ownership, accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement without relying on direct authority.

Specific Requirements 

At least one of the following certifications: 

• CSM 

• PSM 

• PMI-ACP 

• KMP 

• ICP-ATF 

• SA 

• SASM 

• DASM 

• PMP 

Demonstrates: 

• Proficiency in multiple Agile frameworks, including Scrum and Kanban. 

• Proficiency in consulting, advising, and coaching. 

• Strong facilitation skills with the ability to mobilize others. 

• Openness, approachability, a collaborative nature, and enjoyment working with passionate people. 

• A learner mindset and natural curiosity. 

• Ability to consult with teams on the Agile discipline and practices that work best for their needs. 

• Experience with value-driven prioritization techniques. 

• Strong understanding of Agile values and principles. 

• A passionately proactive approach to problem-solving. 

• Ability to meet an individual or team where they are and help them succeed. 

• Professional judgment regarding when to ask for help or escalate an issue. 

• Ability to take on multiple efforts of varying complexity commensurate with experience. 

• Ability to facilitate intake, prioritization, refinement, and decision-making across diverse stakeholder groups. 

• Ability to promote transparency and flow across a shared backlog containing competing business and delivery priorities. 

Intangibles 

• Be "others focused" first. 

• Actively practice emotional and situational intelligence. 

• Provide space for and encourage teams to self-organize. 

• Demonstrate willingness to be vulnerable. 

• Build trust across organizational and team boundaries. 

• Balance facilitation with the ability to challenge the status quo when existing practices impede value delivery. 

Working Conditions 

• Hybrid Mobility Classification: Work will be performed from both remote and onsite locations after the onboarding period. Hybrid employees must live within a reasonable commute to their designated Duke Energy facility, not greater than 50 miles one way. Employees are expected to report to their assigned Duke Energy facility as required and directed by their manager, on average three full workdays per regular workweek

Travel Requirements

Relocation Assistance Provided (as applicable)

Represented/Union Position

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Please note that in order to be considered for this position, you must possess all of the basic/required qualifications.

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