Expert Scrum Master Consultant

Mission Overview

Keystone Solutions is looking for an Expert Scrum Master for a consultancy mission in Brussels. You will be hired by Keystone Solutions and represent us within the client's IT environment, working under our consultancy model. The squad operates in a transversal and technically complex enterprise document and record management environment, covering document ingestion, archiving, consultation and onboarding of content types.

As the squad's key reference for Agile principles and practices, you will establish a common understanding of the methodology, help maximize value and delivery, and create the conditions for effective collaboration, transparency and continuous improvement. You will coach and challenge the squad, Product Owner and stakeholders, remove impediments, manage dependencies, and progressively strengthen team autonomy and ownership.

The transversal nature of the environment requires strength not only in Agile coaching but also in delivery management, dependency management and stakeholder coordination. You must be comfortable engaging multiple technical and functional stakeholders, making dependencies and impediments transparent, and helping turn complex initiatives into predictable delivery. A good understanding of IT and software delivery, integration landscapes and distributed development environments is important. You do not need to be the squad's technical expert, but you must understand technical discussions sufficiently to facilitate decisions, challenge delivery risks and coordinate dependencies.

Delivery and Project Follow-up

These responsibilities will be performed as a Keystone Solutions consultant embedded in the client environment:

• Set up and facilitate Scrum ceremonies: Daily Stand-up, Sprint Planning, Refinement, Sprint Review and Retrospective, as well as additional coordination sessions when required.
• Support the squad in translating objectives and features into a realistic and transparent delivery plan.
• Follow key delivery milestones and proactively identify risks, impediments and dependencies.
• Facilitate cross-team and cross-application dependency management, ensuring dependencies have clear ownership and follow-up.
• Support the Product Owner in maintaining an actionable, prioritized and sufficiently refined Product Backlog.
• Support the team in applying and continuously improving its Definition of Ready, Definition of Done and overall delivery practices.
• Track capacity, predictability and relevant delivery metrics to support fact-based planning and continuous improvement.
• Ensure delivery risks and issues are communicated early, transparently and factually.
• Support coordination around testing, releases, operational readiness and production follow-up.
• Facilitate collaboration between technical, functional, business and operational stakeholders.

Project Methodology and Coaching

• Coach and challenge the Project Team.
• Help the Team face difficulties and promote its gradual self-organization.
• Remove barriers to team effectiveness and protect the team from outside distractions.
• Act as an ambassador of Agile methods within the organization.

Agile Responsibilities

Agile teams are cross-functional. All required disciplines are represented within or connected to the squad, including analysis, development, testing and operational expertise. Although squad members have a primary discipline, they are expected to collaborate beyond strict role boundaries whenever this contributes to achieving the Sprint Goal and delivering value. You will actively foster this collective ownership mindset.

• Coach and challenge the squad in the effective application of Scrum, Kanban and Agile principles.
• Move beyond ceremony facilitation by helping the squad improve ownership, predictability, collaboration and delivery effectiveness.
• Help the team identify root causes behind recurring impediments rather than simply tracking them.
• Promote progressive self-organization and collective ownership.
• Protect the team from unnecessary disruption while maintaining strong connectivity with stakeholders.
• Create an environment of trust, transparency, constructive challenge and continuous feedback.
• Coach the Product Owner and team on backlog quality, prioritization, refinement and Sprint Goal focus.
• Encourage knowledge sharing and continuous improvement within the squad.
• Act as an Agile ambassador within the wider organization and actively contribute to the Scrum Master community.
• Provide transparent reporting and escalation when impediments or dependencies cannot be resolved within the squad.

Experience and Knowledge

• 5 years of experience in a relevant domain.
• Expert knowledge of Agile frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban.
• Strong experience facilitating and coaching cross-functional Agile teams.
• Experience with Agile delivery and reporting tools such as Rally and/or Jira.
• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle.
• Sound knowledge of project and delivery management practices.
• Proven ability to manage dependencies, impediments, risks and delivery commitments.
• Ability to navigate a large organization and interact effectively at different levels.
• Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills.
• Ability to communicate impediments and risks in a transparent, structured and fact-based manner.
• Understanding of distributed software development.
• Understanding of Agile software lifecycle management.
• Understanding of operational readiness, testing and production delivery.
• Understanding of automated testing and Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery principles.
• Sufficient technical affinity to understand integration and architecture discussions and their potential delivery impact.

Technical, Functional and Domain Requirements

• Previous experience in a banking or financial-services environment.
• Experience working with transversal or platform squads providing capabilities to multiple consumers.
• Experience with complex application integrations, APIs or document/content-management environments.
• Experience coordinating delivery involving several applications or teams.
• Experience working with distributed and/or external delivery partners.

Education and Languages

• Master's degree or equivalent through professional experience.
• Dutch is part of the language requirements.
• French is part of the language requirements.
• Sound knowledge of English as well as at least one local language.

Working Model

This is a Keystone Solutions consultancy mission carried out within the client's environment in Brussels. The expected working model is 50% on site and 50% homeworking, reinforcing the consultant's close connection with the client team while providing hybrid flexibility.

Soft Skills and Behaviour

• Positive and pragmatic attitude, with strong empathy and communication skills.
• Ability to create an environment of trust, transparency and constructive challenge.
• Listen before proposing solutions and help the team solve problems autonomously.
• Be comfortable challenging both the squad and stakeholders when commitments, priorities or expectations are unclear.
• Be proactive rather than waiting for impediments to become critical.
• Communicate difficult delivery situations clearly and objectively.
• Encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• Support the development of both the team and individual team members.
• Use feedback and data to drive continuous improvement.
• Promote collaboration and autonomy rather than command-and-control.
• Ask questions before giving instructions and use influence before authority.
• Be able to zoom out from day-to-day Sprint activities and understand broader delivery, dependency and organizational impacts.
• Remain structured and calm when dealing with ambiguity, competing priorities or complex dependencies.

Why Keystone Solutions

Joining Keystone Solutions means building your identity as a consultant while tackling dynamic projects and diverse challenges across client environments. This model enables turbo-charged learning through exposure to broad technical, functional and organizational contexts while supporting skyrocketing ambition and long-term career growth. Being a K-Stone means bringing Keystone Solutions' core values to every engagement, combining professional excellence, collaboration, adaptability and continuous development while representing Keystone Solutions at the client site.

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