Scrum Master

Job purpose

• Enable Marketing Operations and Delivery squads to become effective, self-managing and outcome-focused teams that deliver priority marketing missions with transparency, quality and predictable flow.
• The Scrum Master establishes and coaches fit-for-purpose Scrum, Kanban and agile marketing practices; connects squad execution to QBR, programme and release-train commitments; facilitates the removal of systemic impediments; strengthens delivery data and learning loops; and enables responsible collaboration between employees, agencies, specialists, automation and approved AI agents.

Role boundaries

• The Scrum Master is accountable for the effectiveness of the agile system and coaching the team, not for line-managing squad members or assigning every task.
• Business and marketing owners remain accountable for value, priority, objectives, scope and acceptance decisions.
• Individuals and delivery disciplines remain accountable for completing and updating their work.
• The Scrum Master makes risk, dependency, capacity and flow information visible and facilitates decisions by the appropriate accountable owner.

Key stakeholders

• MOPS mission squads and chapter leadership
• Marketing, Mission and Execution Leads; Insights, Journey and Optimisation disciplines
• Tribe and business stakeholders, agencies, vendors, Centres of Excellence and travelling experts
• Workforce Planning, Finance, Procurement, Risk, Compliance, Data, MarTech and technology partners

Key accountabilities

Squad effectiveness and agile coaching

• Establish a practical agile way of working suited to marketing campaign, service and optimisation work, using Scrum, Kanban or a deliberate combination.
• Coach teams in empiricism, focus, transparency, inspection, adaptation, shared accountability and self-management.
• Facilitate effective planning, daily coordination, reviews, retrospectives, discovery and backlog refinement when facilitation materially improves outcomes.
• Build facilitation capability within squads so that healthy rituals and decision-making do not depend solely on the Scrum Master.

Demand readiness, backlog and sprint discipline

• Partner with accountable business and delivery leads to ensure epics and stories are clear, prioritised, sized, dependency-aware and meet agreed definitions of ready.
• Support realistic sprint or flow commitments based on priority, available capacity, skill constraints, dependencies and work already in progress.
• Maintain transparent backlog and board hygiene, including ownership, dates, status, acceptance criteria, links, risks and evidence required by MOPS standards.
• Challenge overcommitment, hidden work, excessive work in progress and unplanned demand through evidence and constructive facilitation.

Programme, QBR and release-train alignment

• Translate QBR and programme priorities into visible squad plans, milestones, dependencies and delivery risks.
• Connect squad-level execution to integrated release-train and enterprise calendar commitments.
• Identify cross-squad, agency, specialist and technology dependencies early and facilitate ownership, sequencing, escalation and resolution.
• Provide concise, evidence-based programme updates without duplicating the accountability of delivery or business owners.

Flow, impediments and delivery assurance

• Monitor flow and delivery signals such as readiness, starts, ageing, blocked work, carry-over, throughput, predictability and work in progress.
• Facilitate root-cause analysis and timely removal or escalation of impediments, with clear owners and follow-through.
• Embed agreed sprint-start and delivery assurance controls, making missed starts, displacement and downstream impacts visible.
• Use retrospectives and delivery evidence to drive specific, owned and measurable improvement actions.

Collaboration across the marketing ecosystem

• Create effective collaboration across Marketing Leads, Mission Leads, Execution Leads, IJO, agencies, vendors, travelling experts, CoEs and business stakeholders.
• Facilitate conflict resolution, decision-making and trade-offs while maintaining psychological safety and constructive challenge.
• Enable transparent expectations, hand-offs, service dependencies and working agreements across internal and external contributors.
• Support stakeholder reviews that demonstrate completed outcomes, obtain feedback and improve alignment.

Agentic and AI-enabled ways of working

• Help squads identify tasks suitable for approved AI assistance, workflow automation or governed AI-agent execution, while preserving human accountability for value, judgement and risk.
• Facilitate workflow decomposition, clear goals, context, inputs, outputs, acceptance criteria, exception paths and human approval points for agent-supported work.
• Apply responsible AI practices including authorised tools, data protection, access boundaries, output validation, traceability, monitoring and escalation.
• Design contained experiments with baseline measures and clear hypotheses; compare quality, cycle time, rework, risk and value before scaling.
• Make AI-generated or agent-executed work visible in the workflow and ensure it meets the same definition of done, quality and governance standards as human work.
• Coach teams in practical AI literacy, effective prompting and context provision, critical evaluation, safe delegation and human-agent collaboration.

Metrics, learning and continuous improvement

• Create reliable, minimally sufficient dashboards and reports that support decisions rather than reward activity or encourage metric gaming.
• Interpret delivery trends with context and combine quantitative indicators with team and stakeholder feedback.
• Track improvement experiments and ensure retrospective actions have owners, due dates and observable outcomes.
• Share reusable practices and learning across squads and contribute to the evolution of MOPS agile standards.

Governance, risk and professional development

• Maintain auditable workflow records and comply with applicable marketing, risk, privacy, security, procurement, financial and AI governance requirements.
• Escalate material delivery, conduct, data or control risks through the appropriate channels.
• Maintain current knowledge of agile marketing, facilitation, flow, change, digital work and responsible AI.
• Contribute to an inclusive, high-accountability and psychologically safe working environment.

Candidate profile

• Essential qualification: Relevant diploma or degree NQF Level 6 or 7, or equivalent demonstrated capability in business, marketing, operations, project management, information systems or a related discipline.
• Essential certification: Recognised Scrum Master or agile practitioner certification, or demonstrably equivalent practical mastery. Examples include PSM, CSM or PMI-ACP.
• Preferred learning : Agile marketing, Kanban/flow, facilitation, coaching, change management, Jira or equivalent work management, data analytics, responsible AI or process improvement.
• Minimum experience: Typically 5 to 8 years in agile delivery, operations, campaign/programme delivery or project-based work, including at least 2 to 3 years operating as a Scrum Master, Agile Delivery Lead or equivalent. Experience in marketing, creative, agency, media, professional-services or another multi-partner delivery environment is advantageous.

Essential experience

• Coaching cross-functional teams and improving team effectiveness beyond simply scheduling events.
• Managing backlogs, sprint or flow planning, impediments, dependencies and delivery reporting in a workflow platform.
• Facilitating difficult trade-offs and decisions across business, delivery and external partners.
• Using data to diagnose flow and improve delivery predictability without using metrics to judge individuals.
• Supporting programme or portfolio alignment across several teams or workstreams.
• Leading continuous-improvement, operating-model or