King's College London

About us:

About the Directorate 

Information Technology (IT), under the leadership of the College Chief Information Officer (CIO) provides core IT infrastructure and application services in support of education, research and administration across the College on 5 main campuses based in central London.  

Everything IT does is designed to support one or more of the three critical capabilities enabling the College to achieve its strategic objectives. These are  

• Excellent student experience 

• Excellence in research 

• Efficient administration 

A wide range of applications and services are delivered and supported by central and campus-based teams working in collaboration with other College colleagues. The department currently has circa 400 staff. 

The service portfolio includes: 

• Education services (support for the education experience, for both the student and those who teach 

• Research services (conducting and supporting research) 

• Collaboration and Infrastructure services (Supports the ability to work efficiently, wherever, whenever, however and with whomever) 

• Professional services (supporting the research, learning and teaching objectives of the college.  Many investments will help professional services to better support those who teach, learn and conduct research) 

• Partnership services (enabling the College to collaborate with a range of third parties, including King’s Health Partners) 

IT – Information Technology is organised into the following divisions: 

• IT Solutions, IT Services and Office of the CIO 

About the Department of IT Solutions 

IT Solutions – “Plans, Specifies, Designs, builds, integrates and operates solutions”

About the role:

The Agile Coach is a key role in delivering agility change and new ways of working as part of an enterprise transformation. The Agile coach will have a passion and the drive to create and support Agile change across the enterprise, educating, coaching and guiding colleagues through change, and enabling people to be successful in their roles.

The Agile Coach will be a cultural change agent responsible for supporting the creation of clear transformation objectives, the measures of success and working closely with the teams and leadership to create the Agile mindset and cultural shift in the organisation.

The responsibilities of an Agile Coach include:

• Guiding the adoption of Agile principles and practices: The Agile Coach helps individuals, teams, and organizations understand and embrace Agile principles and practices, enabling them to deliver value more effectively.
• Providing training and coaching: The Agile Coach provides training and coaching to individuals and teams on Agile practices such as SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, and Lean, helping them improve their skills and knowledge.
• Identifying and removing impediments: The Agile Coach identifies and helps remove any obstacles or impediments that may hinder the progress of Agile teams, enabling them to deliver value consistently.
• Promoting continuous improvement: The Agile Coach fosters a culture of continuous improvement within the organization, encouraging experimentation, learning, and adaptation to enhance delivery effectiveness.
• Supporting organizational change: The Agile Coach collaborates with leaders and teams to drive the Agile transformation, supporting the adoption of Agile practices and mindset across the organization.
• Facilitating communication and collaboration: The Agile Coach facilitates communication and collaboration among teams, stakeholders, and leaders, promoting transparency and alignment on priorities and goals.
• Facilitating Agile ceremonies: The Agile Coach facilitates key Agile ceremonies such as Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective, helping teams collaborate effectively and continuously improve.

This is a full time / part time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered on an indefinite basis. 

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Recognised Agile certification  
2. Education to degree standard and/or equivalent qualifications/experience  
3. Deep knowledge of  Agile coaching and/or training teams and individuals at all levels, (Team, ART & Portfolio) 
4. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills with colleagues at all levels, and ability to articulate the agile mindset shift in practical and real terms to people  
5. Highly effective relationship management skills, with the ability to find ways of resolving blockers and impediments  
6. In-depth knowledge and experience implementing Agile methodologies, with experience from inception to outcomes  
7. Experience of managing, inspiring, engaging and motivating a team and colleagues to achieve excellent results  
8. Excellent written communication, to articulate effective feature, epic and story descriptions, definition of done and acceptance criteria  
9. Conflict navigator/ Be a mentor. – Supports team members in resolving interpersonal conflicts, problem-solving, and decision-making  
10. Ability to facilitate identification and management of priorities 

Desirable criteria

1. SAFe Scrum Master or SAFe Advanced Scrum Master certification  
2. ITIL foundation qualification  
3. Azure DevOps certification  
4. Good project management skills and knowledge of formal project management methodologies  
5. Experience with Azure DevOps or similar tool and implementation of best practices in Agile tools and workflows  

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.