Manager, Agile Coaching

At Pfizer we make medicines and vaccines that change patients' lives with a global reach of over 780 million patients. Pfizer Digital is the organization charged with winning the digital race in the pharmaceutical industry. We apply our expertise in business process, technology, innovation, and our businesses to support Pfizer in this mission.  

  

The Business Process Excellence (BPE) function works across all business units and functions globally and is the Center of Excellence for Enterprise scale process, or “mega-process,” redesign and establishment of Agile ways of working in the enterprise. The BPE team enables and supports how Pfizer will achieve our Purpose of Breakthroughs that Change Patients’ Lives. Using facilitated, cross-functional Kaizen events, we re-imagine simplified, efficient, and digitized processes, organizational structures and solutions. In addition, we enable sustained effectiveness in teams and team-of-teams through the application of scrum, Kanban, and other Agile frameworks.  As the enterprise COE for Agile, we enable teams to accomplish their work in a faster, innovative and customer-centric way. 

 

 

Role Summary  

The Agile Coach role is accountable for ensuring teams obtain the maximum business value using Agile through effective application of lean mindsets and frameworks. This colleague will ensure the team lives agile values and principles and understands the processes and practices that allow teams to enjoy the benefits of living in Agile ways, measuring their progress and continuously improving. Fostering a community of Agile expertise, and Kaizen process redesign events, this role provides value to our internal and external stakeholders and supports teams in creating breakthroughs for Patients.    

  

Working with across talented teams of functional and technical experts, the candidate embodies Agile practices and values, helping to drive the program of digital transformation that empowers Pfizer’s customer-oriented vision. This manager-level position requires an individual with a proven ability to lead/coach teams across a variety of disciplines, delivering results that meet and exceed stakeholder expectations. 

 

Role Responsibilities 

The Manger, Agile Coach is primarily accountable for facilitating agile transformations for Business Units, their leaders, and team. This Manager will help lead our organization in adopting new ways of working by facilitating Kaizen events bringing cross-functional teams together to understand, document and simplify Enterprise ‘mega-processes.’ Once new processes are defined, aid in the establishment of necessary business cases and planning required to implement the changes through in Agile teams. 

 

To do this, the incumbent will be responsible for the following: 

• Work collaboratively with Business Units, consulting team members and peers to facilitate agile transformation at an organizational, leadership and team level  

• Facilitate Kaizen events to bring cross-functional teams together to understand, document and revise Enterprise ‘mega-processes’. 

• Deliver hands-on training and coaching of defined agile practices to individual teams and programs.  

• Coach Agile teams, teams of teams and product owners in adopting Agile ways of working. In particular, scrum/ SAFe and Kanban and provide hands-on support and immediate feedback to product teams. 

• Proactively engage and co-develop continuous process improvement initiatives to educate colleagues and stakeholders at all levels of the organization and provide tools to help reduce waste and drive improvement. 

• Train teams and establishing skills that allow for the organization-wide adoption of Agile framework. 

• Plan and implement scrum teams effectively and be aware of team maturity and opportunities/needs to apply scaled agile structures (SAFe), ensuring that team vision, goals, scope, KPIs, and the product domain are established. 

• Coach and support scrum masters in establishing an environment where the Scrum team can be as effective as possible, addressing team dynamics, and ensuring good relationships within and across teams. 

• Support teams in writing effective user stories including acceptance criteria, prioritizing backlogs based on business value and working as teams. Aid teams and team members in overcoming typical roadblocks and challenges when adopting new, Agile ways of working. 

• Act an agent of change for organizations using Kaizen and Agile within Pfizer, facilitating communities of Agile practitioners to become self-sustaining, thriving and collaborative.   

 

Qualifications  

• Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant discipline and 5+ years of relevant experience either supporting organizational transformations to adopt Agile ways of thinking and working, process redesign and improvement; or High School Diploma with an additional 4+ years of demonstrated experience as an Agile Coach (in addition to the 5+ years of experience referenced). Relevant certifications can be substituted for one year of experience.

• Has comprehensive knowledge of the application of Agile principles, framework and of Kaizen events to redefine business processes. 

• Proven expertise delivering business value gained from experience working as an Agile coach, scrum master and/or product owner, design thinking and lean principles. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to build relationships, influence outcomes, and to deliver effective presentations to a variety of audiences and stakeholders. 

• Comfortable with ambiguity and facilitating discussions to explore the best possible solutions. 

• The ability to lead and inspire with imagination, courage, and curiosity. 

• The ideal candidate will have one or more practitioner level certifications from industry-recognized scrum, scaled agile, Kanban and Kaizen certification bodies, (for example, Scrum Alliance, Certified Agile Coach (CAC) or SAFe Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), etc.). 

 

Preferred Qualifications  

• Working knowledge of principles and concepts and possesses a demonstrated track record of using knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry to support teams in their revising processes and/or adopting Agile 

• Coaching level certifications from industry-recognized certification bodies 

• Experience in using and/or teaching use of Jira, Confluence and Jira Align a plus.  

• Demonstrated capabilities managing global, complex programs consisting of virtual teams. 

 

NON-STANDARD WORK SCHEDULE, TRAVEL OR ENVIRONMENT REQUIREMENTS  

• Travel will be required as part of this role. Expectations around travel will vary but candidates must be capable of travel within the region, to other regions, and to Pfizer World Headquarters.  

• BPE is a 7x24x365 endeavor. This role may require physical or virtual participation on a weekend, holiday, or after normal business hours 

• Primary working hours will follow the Eastern time zone 

Other Job Information

• Eligible for employee referral bonus
• #LI-PFE

Pfizer requires all U.S. new hires to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 prior to the first date of employment.  As required by applicable law, Pfizer will consider requests for Reasonable Accommodations.

Sunshine Act

Pfizer reports payments and other transfers of value to health care providers as required by federal and state transparency laws and implementing regulations.  These laws and regulations require Pfizer to provide government agencies with information such as a health care provider’s name, address and the type of payments or other value received, generally for public disclosure.  Subject to further legal review and statutory or regulatory clarification, which Pfizer intends to pursue, reimbursement of recruiting expenses for licensed physicians may constitute a reportable transfer of value under the federal transparency law commonly known as the Sunshine Act.  Therefore, if you are a licensed physician who incurs recruiting expenses as a result of interviewing with Pfizer that we pay or reimburse, your name, address and the amount of payments made currently will be reported to the government.  If you have questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact your Talent Acquisition representative.

EEO & Employment Eligibility

Pfizer is committed to equal opportunity in the terms and conditions of employment for all employees and job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or gender expression, national origin, disability or veteran status.  Pfizer also complies with all applicable national, state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act and IRCA.  Pfizer is an E-Verify employer.

Continuous Imprv and Proj Mgmt

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