Projects

This is a selection of the projects, that are interesting for one reason or another. I estimate that I gained for my clients more than €30 Million (800 Million czk).

Joyful Craftsmen (CZ)

September 2023 - April 2024

Situation: The organization provides services of data management on Microsoft technologies - team leasing, data management, data testing, reporting, and strategic consulting. Too many activities, with everything in operational mode, and a lack of strategic thinking.

Role: Chief Executive Advisor

Engagement: My function was to work with a senior team of owners to help them define organizational strategy, streamline operations, deliver critique, and spread change into the company. In parallel, I was opening the door for young and newly appointed leaders toward the secrets of leadership, bringing topics onto the table and giving them feedback. I created a Leadership MiniAcademy to help them understand how managing modern knowledge-based organization differ from traditional hierarchical bureaucracy. We have observed the importance of company culture, seeing people as assets (and not the resources as traditional organizations do), and activating their potential through ambition and radical feedback on daily activities. We have discussed the concept of co-entrepreneurship for Agile and activating the potential of people in various stages of their journey across the organization.

I was happy to share practical experiences from my management journey, which one can only get by living it through.

Zymestic Solutions (SK)

October 2021 - May 2022

Situation: The organization creates GIS solutions to collect, process, and visualize spatial data related to earth for Government agencies in the Slovak Republic and a small number of private customers. There are operational issues with the delivery, which results in low engagement, delays in delivery, and low profitability of the projects. Can Agile bring the changes to improve organizational performance? What we should change to get better?

Role: Executive Agile Coach, assessor, management consultant, change catalyst, Scrum trainer

Engagement: We have used The Performance-Agile-Assessment to identify weak points, deficiencies, and dependencies. We selected Scrum as an underlying framework and accompanied it with a single reporting tool for the entire organization. It enabled us a holistic view and transparency. We began the improvement journey: requirements quality, reduction of expensive reworks, work with customers, team formation, quality, or performance.

I delivered company assessment and Scrum/Kanban training, facilitated workshops, and participated in ideas and plans. I worked with the owner on realizing organizational issues and its consequence for the Agile way of work and supported Scrum Masters/PM on a variety of operational issues, both remote and on-site.

MONET+ (CZ)

Jun 2019 - Nov 2020

Situation: The organization creates authentication solutions and secure identity management for complex and open distributed multiplatform systems. Its customers start using the word Agile which triggered curiosity to understand it thoroughly. What are the risks or benefits? What is its applicability for company operations and delivery? And how to gain an edge and secure better value delivery to the customer?

Role: Agile and management consultant, change supporter and catalyst, trainer

Engagement: After initial training on organizational Agile, people realized that Agile is indeed a much bigger topic than they previously thought. We have carried out The Performance-Agile-Assessment, to understand the complex delivery setup and propose the way, how to implement Agile. We decided to go with the traditional approach instead of a radical change, and we have injected some agile practices for better performance. Later on, we were slowly adding more agile elements. We have achieved better predictability of development; stable quality; greater collaboration and engagement among the people; or smooth and streamlined delivery. Through the success, we have ignited new aspirations - bringing new products and entering a new market. Finally, we start initiatives to improve the quality of management in strategy, innovation, and conceptual work on a new product/service.

Project related article: 

Simonik, Michal: "We are changing the organization of work in MCA - Lessons Learned" in English, Czech.

XAPT Corporation (H)

Apr 2017 - Feb 2018

Situation: XAPT creates specialized CRM and ERP solution for very large organizations worldwide. Expected acquisition of new and significantly large customer requires expansion of operations. Shortage on labor market makes it impossible to grow enough, therefore it searches for operational effectiveness and reorganization to make onboarding of this customer possible. Agile was chosen to support the change but its adoption struggled.

Role: Agile and management consultant, agile techniques trainer

Engagement: After initial assessment, we did training of multiple dev teams for Scrum and Kanban. We consulted processes to identify weak points and inefficiencies across very long value chain and suggested improvements. Suggested prioritization of activities based on multiple criteria and new metrics and shifting decision making toward lower organizational levels. Streamlining processes, delegated responsibilities and greater transparency lead to better inside. Decision making has adopted accordingly. Coaching of mid managers to new approach. Trained product managers to take care of product development strategically. Organizational improvements enabled onboarding new customer, and gained time to build inhouse capability to handle increased work load.

PRIA SYSTEM (CZ)

Feb 2013 - Feb 2015

Situation: PRIA is a digital marketing agency. It develops websites, designs creative campaigns, does power marketing, develops applications and graphic works, creates value content including copywriting and administers PPCs, SEOs, etc. A young and fast-growing company was unable to manage internal processes resulting in serious financial consequences. The highly creative nature of work often fell into chaos. I was invited by a new investor to do an assessment of development processes and to suggest a solution how to improve performance.

Role: Agile assessor and consultant, Scrum and Kanban trainer

Engagement: Initial assessment indicated the overall complexity of the works. A single project consists of dozens of steps. And one person can be engaged with multiple projects in parallel. It interrupts the flow and imposes an excessive load on account project managers, including obfuscating the visibility of tasks and their traceability. I did Scrum and Kanban training to encourage internal discussion on improvements and new work habits. The professionalization of the operations included consulting about new work arrangements, reporting, planning, personal accountability, finance, and people's allocation. With improved planning, we have reduced reworks and penalizations for missing parts. We learned to prioritize better. We split the pool of resources into development streams with better transparency and improved predictability of the delivery. As Mr. Jan Podzimek, CEO has stated: "in 5 months we went up from revenue 700.000 CZK to 1.5 Million CZK". Sustainably and with a better margin.

NetDirect / Allegro Group (CZ / PL)

Feb 2013 - Dec 2013

Situation: Organization creates ecommerce platforms and solutions. Acquired because of proprietary technology. Serious operational and financial issues.

Role: Scrum Trainer, Agile and Management Consultant

Engagement: We did technical due diligence and designed short term plan to professionalize the company - clear roles, requirements, processes and responsibilities. Trained dozens of people on Scrum and more, created teams and structures, introduced end-to-end workflow, money-earned based prioritization. Consulted to interim manager and co-created strategy for recovery. We found skilled technical manager to improve R&D. In days we unlocked delivery and started invoicing, improved cash-flow, reset project management entirely, created teams capable to deliver, downsized and put the organization on track to fit and more. Company was then divided and its parts were sold again to multiple new owners.

Moravia IT  (CZ)

Apr 2013 - Oct 2013

Situation: Organization was developing internal project management tool - year plus of development. Project delayed and heavily over budget, and considered to be halted.

Role: Scrum Trainer, Agile and Management Consultant

Engagement: Restarted "scrum" to true Scrum in dev team, mentored SM to keep the process, consulted and mentored PO/Product Director on the role, process and metrics, which led to define better product strategy and prioritize requirements - value based prioritization around product's business impact. With focus on value we saved the project - product rollout across organization from 40 users to hundreds in few weeks. We have identified opportunities for process update and organizational structure change that may lead to 5 millions of EUR in savings.

Presented as case study at conferences Agile By Example (Poland) and Agilia Budapest (Hungary) labeled 5 Millions of Euro. Big money or a small change?

Polarion Software  (CZ / DE)

Oct 2011 - Dec 2011

Situation: Ongoing 1 year development project for a new product, 2 months toward deadline and 6 months delayed behind original plan with very heavy technical debt. Management ordered team to use Scrum.

Role: Scrum Trainer and Consultant

Engagement: Introduced Scrum and disciplined approach, significantly improved productivity, shortened delay to 5 weeks only, with reduction of bugs. Providing consulting to newly hired Scrum Master to learn about Scrum and help him focus to objectives.