Agile Coach

**We’re First Central Insurance & Technology Group (First Central for short), an award-winning innovative insurance and technology organisation, delivering market-leading motor insurance, underwriting, distribution, finance, technology and legal services.**
Fancy a new career in a fast-paced and dynamic workplace? If so, this could be your lucky day

We’re looking for an **Agile Coach - IT Operations** to join our Technology and Data team in our Haywards Heath, West Sussex office. Working flexibly, you'll spend the majority of your time working from home with a couple of days a month in the office, but of course, it’s your choice - if you prefer to be in the office more - that's good with us too.

We need somebody who is highly focused and enjoys delivering high-quality outcomes, setting the pace and thrives on driving teams to be efficient and effective in solution delivery within the IT Operations teams. Strategically, Technical Operation teams have always been aligned to ITIL frameworks due to SLAs, contractual needs, and management of major incidents, you’ll support FCG’s Agile Journey, where the Agile Coach is required to co-create and lead FCG’s Agile ways of working within IT Operations whilst ensuring alignment with the Product Engineering Data/ Analytics pillars.

As the IT Operations Agile coach, you’ll work across all of IT Operations to review, improve, and identify processes or ways of working to incorporate Agile ways of working and educate the teams to use Agile tools such as Azure DevOps.

You’ll need to bring energy and enthusiasm to create the right environment by removing blockers, and build an environment of trust, self-organisation, ensuring the health and happiness of the teams. Continual Improvement is at the heart of the role and is seen as the champion of continuous improvement activities, always seeking to reduce waste and increase productivity, driving forward Agile in IT Operations. The role provides support to the wider areas of Tech and Data, assisting in key initiatives to support FCG in their Agile Journey, driving the adoption of new ways of working, experiments, and innovative improvements.

**Powering the business with the right tools**

**You’ll be the perfect person for us if**:

- You have a deep understanding of Agile principles and practices and how these can be applied to IT Operations.
- Have hands-on experience leading and transforming IT Operation teams and departments into a more Agile way of working.
- Naturally motivate and inspire people and enjoy supporting them through change.
- You're a great team player who embraces collaboration, holds themselves accountable and backs up goals with action.

**Job responsibilities**:

- Understanding and building of the Agile practices for IT Operations.
- Responsible for aligning IT Ops with other Agile pillars across the business and implement ways of working.
- Take primary responsibility to ensure an Agile culture is embedded across IT Operations pillar.
- Take primary responsibility for the oversite and training of tooling to improve delivery of features and product backlog items, driving the IT Operations & product teams to achieve committed outcomes and being accountable for the team’s performance.
- Interface effectively across all parts of the change delivery process to ensure effective communication, planning and timely delivery of releases to support the IT Operations pillar.
- Guide, support, mentor the IT Operations leadership team and people managers on Agile ways of working ensuring team culture is at the heart of the agile education.
- Educate and drive forward robust effective delivery plans, ensuring they are in place by executing a continuous approach to planning, forecasting, estimating, managing uncertainty and contingency planning.
- Optimise the flow of work through the teams and as part of the overall change delivery process, by clearing blockers, impediments, and resolving any conflict situations.
- Take responsibility for ensuring the IT Operations & product team always have a healthy backlog with an adequate amount of prior prepared items to work on.
- Create a culture within the IT Operations team of psychological safety, creativity, innovation and high performance, which builds trust and credibility with stakeholders, and has problem solving at its core.
- Lead the implementation and operation of Agile practices into IT Operations team(s), including facilitating all events (Planning, Daily Scrum, Review, Retro), and support ‘Scaled Agility’ events such; Program Backlog Refinement, PI Planning, Scrum of Scrums, PO Sync, Inspect and Adapt.
- Coach the IT Operations team and the organisation to work more effectively within an Agile framework and drive increased collaboration across Technology and Data.

**Job-specific competencies**

**Experience & Knowledge**
- Solid, demonstratable experience of an Operational background to understand team ways of working and culture.
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