Project Manager

W. W. Norton is seeking an experienced, professional Project Manager/Scrum Master to join the team building Norton’s digital products. Unique among publishers, W. W. Norton "grows readers for life," from preschool through middle school, high school, college, and beyond. While known for being the nation’s largest independent, employee-owned book publishing firm, W. W. Norton also has a growing list of digital applications that serve students, instructors, and general readers. The Project Manager/Scrum Master will join a first-rate team of project managers, business analysts, UX designers, engineers, and QA analysts to create and support exceptional products for Norton’s customers. The Project Manager/Scrum Master will work within the Digital Product team. Through collaboration with the Product Owner (Product Manager), the Project Manager manages the overall project goals and scope. The best candidates for this role will possess knowledge of learning management systems and educational technology. This position reports to the Director of Project Management.

Essential Job Responsibilities Include:

• Responsible for any schedules, milestone tracking, communication, and status updates - with input from other teams and coordination with Product Owner (Product Manager)
• Manages project scope and timelines in coordination with Product Owner (Product Manager)
• Serves as Scrum Master for the team - leading scrum ceremonies, clearing obstacles, shielding the team from interferences, and ensuring the team is working effectively
• Helps resolve impediments and conflicts
• Facilitates the daily stand-ups -- ensuring they are timely, focused, and brief
• Schedules and runs the sprint planning, backlog grooming and sprint retrospective sessions
• Leads project planning - working closely with the Product Owner (Product Manager)
• Works closely with the Business Analyst in planning and scoping requirements
• Collaborates and communicates with Product Owner (Product Manager), technical leads, developers, business analysts, quality assurance analysts, quality assurance leads, designers and stakeholders
• Shows progress toward the completion of the planned project by creating and maintaining burn down chart for releases -- involves Product Owner (Product Manager) if a sprint is under- or over-committed
• Manages deployment planning and scheduling in coordination with Product Owner (Product Manager), Technical leads and Quality Assurance leads
• Works closely with Product Specialists to determine required action on bug reports and to establish workarounds for impacted users
• Gathers information on trending issues from the Service Desk and in coordination with the Product Specialists
• Supports the Product Manager in delivering accurate project updates to aid in keeping stakeholders informed
• Establishes JIRA project with proper ticket workflows, releases, and AGILE boards
• Works with Product Owner (Product Manager) and the team to establish epic ticket groupings in JIRA
• Establishes RACI matrix for projects and works with the Product Owner (Product Manager) to establish communication plans
• Monitors progress on a day-to-day activities against goals
• Facilitates the team focus on the on-time delivery of agreed products and releases
• Makes sure ticket status is updated and accurate - and ticket assignments are managed
• Sets project schedules, sprint schedules and defines project milestones with input from all other teams (including development, UX design and Quality Assurance) assigned to that product
• Works with Product Owner (Product Manager) to ensure that the product vision and high-level business objectives are clear and achievable
• Ensures that the functional requirements are tracked, achievable, and met
• Works with the Product Owner (Product Manager) to facilitate creation and maintenance of the Project Roadmap
• Works with the Product Owner (Product Manager) to turn the product roadmap into executable projects
• Provides detailed reporting to management on project status, risk assessments, and milestone completion
• Promotes continuous improvement and helps the team increase velocity
• Helps to manage dependencies among cross-product teams
• Helps to identify, classify, and manage risk for functional improvement requests
• Gathers information from technical leads, QA leads and business analysts into recommendations
• Collaborates with other Project Managers across different teams

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5 years of relevant Project Management experience
• Bachelor's degree
• Familiar and comfortable with Agile methodologies
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent work experience (desirable)
• Experience working with e-learning and blended learning programs
• Proficiency using commonly accepted scheduling and project management tools
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications
• Good leadership and persuasion skills
• Flexible in approach to problem solving
• Ability to organize and work under strict time and deadlines, while producing quality deliverables
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously
• Ability to adapt to different team styles and dynamics
• Excellent analytical, problem identification, and problem-solving skills
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Ability to understand and communicate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical colleagues
• Ability to communicate and resolve issues in a clear and professional manner
• Highly self-motivated and self-managed
• Organized and focused
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Ability to act as a proactive and collaborative team member
• Minimal travel (as required)
• Employment eligibility to work with W.W. Norton & Company in the US is required.
• Must be able to work full business hours.

Compensation and Benefits*

Currently available benefits include:

• Annual compensation for this position is $70,000-90,000. All salaries and salary ranges posted by Norton may vary depending on experience, skills, location, and like considerations.
• Generous paid time off, paid holidays, and summer Friday afternoons beginning in July
• Generous health benefits, including PPO and EPO medical insurance options, vision insurance, dental insurance, flexible spending accounts for healthcare, dependent care and commuter, gym membership reimbursement, and more. Coverage for spouses, domestic partners, and dependent children is available.
• Profit-Sharing and 401(k) benefit plan with discretionary contribution matching by employer
• Disability and life insurances
• FMLA, parental and other leave
• Employee Assistance Program (for mental health, financial planning, and other needs)
• Company-provided laptop
• Employee discounts on Norton books
• Limited matching of employee donations to eligible non-profit organizations

*All policies and benefits described are subject to change at any time.