Senior Value Stream Coach

Guardian Life•New York, NY

45d•Hybrid

About The Position

Guardian's Digital and Technology (D&T) organization is continuing its transformation to accelerate business growth and strategic execution. As a Value Stream Coach Lead, you will play a pivotal leadership role in shaping the coaching strategy across value streams and beyond. You will lead a team of coaches within the Center of Excellence (CoE) and establish foundational communities and standards that elevate our product and platform operating model. You Are: A strategic leader and change agent who thrives in driving enterprise-wide transformation. You are passionate about embedding modern ways of working across the organization, developing value stream coaching talent, and delivering results and positive impact for teams. You are collaborative, visionary, and committed to delivering measurable business outcomes.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in Agile coaching, transformation leadership, or related roles
Proven experience managing and developing coaching talent
Expertise in coaching and influencing senior and executive leaders
Deep understanding of Agile, Lean, and product-platform operating models
Experience standing up and scaling Communities of Practice
Strong proficiency in tooling governance (JIRA, Confluence, SPM, etc.)
Exceptional communication, facilitation, organizational and influence skills
Strategic mindset with a track record of driving enterprise-level change

Responsibilities

Lead and Manage Coaching Talent: Serve as a people leader for Team Coaches within the Center of Excellence (CoE), providing mentorship, performance management, and career development support.
Foster a high-performing coaching culture that aligns with Guardian's transformation goals.
Mentor other Value Stream Coaches and Team Coaches.
Facilitate Value Stream Events: Lead and facilitate key value stream events such as PI Planning and Value Stream Syncs.
Ensure alignment and transparency across teams and stakeholders.
Drive continuous exploration and backlog refinement ahead of PI Planning for all supported value streams.
Coach Senior and Executive Leaders: Provide influential, direct coaching to senior leaders outside of value streams on the product and platform operating model, agile principles, and new ways of working.
Influence leadership mindset and behaviors to support enterprise agility and customer-centricity.
Establish and Scale Communities of Practice: Partner with Head of Coaching and Transformation to stand up Communities of Practice (CoPs) across disciplines such as Engineering, Product Management, and Agile Delivery.
Drive knowledge sharing, capability building, and continuous improvement across CoPs.
Coach CoP leaders in successful execution of Communities of Practice.
Own Tooling Standards and Governance: Define, update, and maintain standards across key tooling platforms (e.g., JIRA, Confluence, SPM).
Ensure consistent usage and alignment to best practices across teams and value streams.
Advance Coaching Strategy and Execution: Partner with Value Stream Leaders, Product and Technology leaders, and other stakeholders to evolve coaching plans and maturity models.
Champion and influence the use of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to align strategy, execution, and outcomes.
Coach teams and leaders in designing effective value stream structures and collaborative practices that minimize hand-offs, clarify product ownership, and define team outcomes with precision
Provide guidance on business process improvement to enhance operational efficiency across streams.
Shape coaching plans, maturity models, and transformation strategy. Drive change beyond individual value streams.
Drive Portfolio and Flow Optimization: Identify systemic impediments, dependencies, and waste across value streams.
Collaborate with leaders to improve flow, reduce friction, and accelerate value delivery.
Coach leaders on value stream mapping and leveraging flow metrics to identify systematic bottlenecks and accelerate delivery.
Facilitate dependency management and stakeholder engagement across multiple value streams to reduce delivery risk.
Champion OKRs and Strategic Alignment: Help define OKRs with the teams to measure value and optimize team performance.
Ensure OKRs cascade effectively from value stream to team level maintaining alignment across all layers.
Ensure strategy, portfolio investments, and execution are connected, tying work to business priorities and outcomes.
Partner with portfolio managers to connect portfolio planning and demand management to the product and platform teams' PI planning, OKR mapping, and team capacity assessments.
Promote Modern Engineering Practices: Champion modern software development practices including CI/CD automation, unit test coverage, test environment management, and shift-left testing.
Partner with the Digital and Technology Value Stream leader and Software Engineering Practice leader to support engineering excellence.

Benefits

At Guardian, you'll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals. Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.
As part of Guardian's Purpose - to inspire well-being - we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

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