McKinsey Digital Labs – Agile Expert

As an Agile Expert at McKinsey Digital Labs, you would be involved in leading agile implementation and transformation projects at Fortune 500 companies. You would be a core member of the McKinsey consulting team with responsibilities that range from shaping strategic product designs to managing and transforming agile teams.

Detailed Description

McKinsey’s Digital Labs (MDL) combines unparalleled business knowledge with a world-class agile development process to offer distinctive support for enterprise IT enablement. Our highly skilled system architects and development managers configure software packages and build custom applications, creating the foundation for rapid and cost-effective implementation of systems that maximize value from day one.

Despite being part of a large, multinational organization, MDL works more like a small startup company. Our development teams are small, flexible and employ agile methodologies to quickly provide our consultants with the solutions they need. We combine the latest open source technologies together with traditional Enterprise software products.

Our office culture is casual, fun and social, with an emphasis on education and innovation. We have the freedom to try new ideas, experiment and are expected to be constantly learning and growing. There is also a strong emphasis on mentoring others in the group, enabling them to grow and learn

Background:

As an Agile Expert at McKinsey, you would be involved in leading agile implementation and transformation projects at Fortune 500 companies. You would be a core member of the McKinsey consulting team with responsibilities that range from shaping strategic product designs to managing and transforming agile teams. Our consultants engage on some of the most challenging business problems facing our clients. These projects can range from rapid process re-inventions at leading financial institutions to ‘big data’ analytics at large scale retail organizations. In each situation, our Agile Experts are typically at the center of the problem solving, advising our most senior clients on how to successful execute on their strategic vision using a world class agile approach.

Experience:

An Agile Expert at McKinsey is typically versed in the product, process and technology aspects of the agile approach. He/she is a practitioner in all aspects of the scrum process in agile, which include planning poker, running daily stand-up, conducting sprint reviews and facilitating retrospectives. He/she would also be proficient in all aspects of the agile deliverables required for a technology team to build beautiful software. This includes hands on development of storyboards, wireframes, product backlog, user stories and acceptance criteria. Lastly, the individual would also have a strong understanding of key agile engineering practices to guide senior client IT leaders on improvement opportunities in their engineering practices.

Key candidate attributes:

At MDL, we’re looking for an Agile Expert that is multifaceted and has a real passion for agile software development and driving change in people and organizations. Typical candidates are evangelist in the agile community, that regularly publishes papers, speaks at conferences and contributes to agile interest groups. Despite multiple years of experience leading agile teams, the individual is still an active learner and is excited about driving change and continuous improvements using agile. The individual is passionate about being a change agent and can strike the balance between ‘doing’ and ‘teaching’ to effective build our client capabilities in Agile.

Desired Skills
Prerequisites :

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Business or equivalent degree
• Minimum of 4-6 years of experience leading agile projects as a product owner and/or scrum master
• Strong command of English language (both verbal and written)

Agile experience :

• Experience as both a team member and coach in the agile product owner and/or scrum master roles
• Experience with building consumer quality products, enabling business capability and objectives through technology
• Knowledge and understanding of technical engineering best practices (e.g., test-driven development, continuous integration, etc.)
• Proficient with drawing storyboards, creating wireframes, creating/‘grooming’ product backlogs, writing user stories and developing acceptance criteria
• Experience with running and teaching agile in a workshop or classroom setting (preferred)
• Relentless prioritization and alignment with business and IT stakeholders to ensure highest value capture
• Excellent project manager that can plan 2-3 steps ahead of the team and surface hidden risks 2-3 levels deep within the team

Non-technical competencies :

• Ability to work at an abstract level and continuously ‘pivot’ to arrive at the highest impact answer for the client
• Enjoys and gets energized by complex problem solving and ability to push the innovation on solutions
• Ability to work under pressure, manage client expectations effective and not get overwhelmed by client pressures on team
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence senior client business and IT executives on transforming towards agile
• Excellent leadership skills and enjoys teaching/mentoring others
• Ability to move between strategic discussions with senior client leaders to tackle on the ground agile coaching with teams
• Willing to travel up to 80%

More info? Say hi to Jan Vanden Boer