Scrum Master

About the Department

Novo Nordisk, a global health care company, is committed to discovering and developing innovative medicines to help people living with diabetes lead longer, healthier lives. To support this, Novo Nordisk is conducting research on stem cell therapy. Stem cell research raises hopes for improved treatment of Type 1 Diabetes and for future treatments with cell transplantation therapy. This treatment could be offered to people with many different serious chronic diseases caused by the degeneration of specific cells, such as Type 1 Diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes is manifested by the selective destruction of the insulin-producing cells in the body, which leads to a life-long dependence on insulin injections to control blood sugar levels. It is usually diagnosed in children and young adults. Cell therapy may offer a better treatment by replacing the lost cells with new insulin-producing cells derived from stem cells, thus avoiding daily multiple insulin injections as well as numerous blood glucose tests. This treatment may also offer better blood glucose control, which is crucial to avoid late-stage complications such as blindness and kidney failure. In this project Novo Nordisk will generate new stem cell lines to be used in future cell therapies to treat Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson’s and chronical heart failure. Are you ready to make a difference?

The Position

This position is responsible to facilitate the agile way of working, role model technique and behavior inside the team. Maintain the agile way of working day-to-day. Responsible for facilitating events on the essential level, e.g. stand-ups, planning, demos and retrospectives. Work closely together with product owners and product management on how to fill and prioritise the backlog. Manage impediments to the team. As Scrum Master be the servant leader for the delivery team helping them following the agreed agile process. Help remove impediments and foster an environment for high-performing team dynamics, with continuous flow and improvement implementation. Change ambassador to drive the learning culture and Agile mindset in Novo Nordisk.

Relationship

Reports directly to Director Infrastructure and Hosting. Will work closely with Global IT Operations North America staff, application development teams, product owners, product managers, scrum master, external IT vendors, consultants and lines of business. Partners and collaborates with Global IT Operations worldwide, application and business agile teams to deliver front and back end systems architecture solutions.

Essential Functions

• Facilitate the Agile team to efficient delivery
  • Via facilitation and feedback ensure that the Agile team is constantly evaluating own efficiency and taking corrective actions when improvement opportunities are identified
  • Provide collaborative leadership to one or more Agile teams by applying Agile practices (such as Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe) and to help Agile team members embrace and practice the values and principles of Agile
  • Support the Product Owner and entire Agile team in their efforts to facilitate a healthy team dynamic within the Agile team and vis-à-vis other Agile teams
  • Work with stakeholders to understand needed future capabilities, and in cooperation with the Agile team, People Leaders and others, ensure build-up of these capabilities
  • Facilitate the team in adopting DevOps and built-in quality
  • Help identify IT enablers and facilitate prioritization and execution
  • Promote Agile quality practices
• Coaching and leadership
  • Provide overall leadership for the Agile team within the deliveries
  • Coach Agile team members incl. Product Owner
  • Coach stakeholders to adopt Agile ways of working
  • Help ensure a healthy team environment – help resolve conflicts and drive motivation in the Agile team
  • Provide feedback on performance of Agile team members to People Leaders and cooperate on long term career planning

• Keep track of and help solve impediments and escalate if necessary
  • Work with the Agile team and other stakeholders to help solve impediments
  • Facilitate cross-team collaboration and dependencies
  • Apply organisational understanding and power to solve impediments quickly
• Help the Agile team manage their progress via transparent backlog and board overviews
  • Maintain relevant team metrics and follow-up on team measurements
  • Facilitate and support the Agile team to deliver according to agreements

• Help the Agile team and other roles prepare and align expectations before and during events
  • Actively work with the Product Owner to qualify backlogs and demos
  • Help the Agile team prepare for events
  • Evaluate future backlog to ensure availability of people and budgets
  • Make sure that team norms are exhibited, including, but not limited to, priority driven workflow, realistic and executable iteration loading, and limited work-in-progress practices
• Drive Agile teams, vendors and customers in the Novo Nordisk Agile way of working incl. Agile Delivery Model, Azure DevOps, Agile QMS and Agile Sourcing
  • Work with external stakeholders e.g. vendors, customers and Novo Nordisk employees to help them understand Novo Nordisk Agile way of working
  • Inspire and mentor other Novo Nordisk teams to become Agile
  • Participate in the relevant Communities of Practice

• Change ambassador to drive the learning culture and Agile mindset in Novo Nordisk
  • Include colleagues in Agile learnings
  • Share learnings and examples with the Agile Program Management Office (APMO)/Agile Transformation Office (ATO)
  • Be a great role model of Agile way of working and continuously drive Agile improvements in corporation with other Scrum Masters
  • Evolve the professional Scrum Master capabilities in Novo Nordisk
• Budgeting and vendor management
  • Establish and follow up on business cases and budgets
  • In cooperation with procurement drive vendor selection and negotiations
  • Vendor management and performance follow-up

• In case that the team is part of an Agile Release Train (ART), the Scrum Master must work with the ART Leadership, Scrum of Scrums and other teams (including Scrum Master and Product Owner) to ensure deliveries

Physical Requirements

10-20% overnight travel required.

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration (or other related field) is required. Solid relevant professional experience may be substituted when appropriate.
• Advanced degree preferred
• A minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible Computer Science, IT, programming/systems analysis or other related experience required.
• Scrum Master experience and cross functional team lead experience preferred
• Certified Scrum Master/SAFe DevOps preferred
• Experience in Lean-Agile methodologies preferred
• Limited practical experience with Agile tools or techniques (e.g. shadowing another Scrum Master)
• Experience with technical IT delivery as Developer, Tester or similar preferred
• Understand the Agile mindset and culture
• Excellent communicator and facilitator of team dynamics
• Basic understanding of Agile principles, methodologies and events
• Capable of handling distributed teams spread geographically - two or more countries
• Help the Agile team manage their progress via transparent backlog and board overviews
• Help solve impediments in an Agile team context with help from other Scrum Masters, Business Owner or Product Owner
• Basic knowledge on Agile tools e.g. Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, XP and DevOps
• Basic experience working in an Agile team context

Novo Nordisk is an Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/Veteran/Disability/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity.

If you are interested in applying to Novo Nordisk and need special assistance or an accommodation to apply, please call us at 1-855-411-5290. This contact is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.