Agile Coach

Technologies: Azure DevOps, Jira, Confluence, Office 365 (Teams, PowerPoint, Copilot, Excel, SharePoint, Forms, OneNote, PowerAutomate, Word), DataDog, Conceptboard, Python, AWS, Claude, Perplexity Methodology: Scrum

• Steering and supporting the organization in introducing Scrum and a SAFe-inspired quarterly roadmap and portfolio planning at program level.
• Servant leadership for Scrum teams and managers to achieve quarterly goals and measurably increase value creation for internal and external customers.
• Designing and building efficient communication and collaboration structures between multiple development teams and central stakeholders in the organization.
• Moderating and facilitating cross-functional workshops and management meetings to align on shared goals.
• Coaching leaders, Product Owners, and development teams on agile values, role understanding, and scaled ways of working (Scrum, SAFe, Business Agility).
• Removing structural obstacles at team and organizational level through targeted impediment management and escalation processes.
• Enabling teams to become more self-organized, accountable, and end-to-end responsible along the value streams.
• Individual coaching of key people (Product Owners, Chapter Leads, Scrum Masters) to strengthen their impact in the transformation program.
• Organization-wide identification, planning, and implementation of process, structure, and tool improvements to sustainably increase efficiency, throughput, and value creation.
• Close support for Product Owners in stakeholder management, business value prioritization, product strategy, roadmap planning, and effective collaboration with development teams.
• Introducing, governing, and scaling Azure DevOps as the central project and product management tool, including coaching the organization on usage, reporting, and alignment at all levels.

Achievements:

• Clear increase in visibility, transparency, and perceived value creation of the development teams within the overall organization.
• Noticeable improvement in communication between development, business, and other stakeholders.
• Optimization of work processes, workflow, and backlog structures, which reduced lead times, sharpened priorities, and sustainably increased team effectiveness.

The insurance application service provider in Switzerland intended to develop a multi-channel output system to support their customers on their digital enhancement journey.

• Established an Agile Release Train based on SAFe 6.0
• Trained all ART leadership
• Coached the development of the solution intent
• Established 5 teams in the ART. Developed the Epic and Feature Backlog for the team.
• Planned and coached 2 PI planning sessions

The insurance application service provider in Switzerland intended to transform their claims management BPO and IT team into an agile delivery organization.

• Established an Agile Release Train based on SAFe 6.0
• Trained all ART leadership
• Coached the development of the solution intent
• Established 2 teams in an ART.
• Developed the Epic and Feature Backlog for the team.
• Planned and coached 2 PI planning sessions

• Agile Transformation – introducing agile principles and transforming traditional IT departments into Scrum and Kanban teams

• IT Operating Model – redesigning the IT organization and introducing modern delivery structures and roles

• Flight Levels – implementing Flight Levels to align strategy, coordination and operational execution

• Leadership & Coaching – recruiting Agile Coaches and coaching Scrum Masters and IT leaders

• ERP Operations – acting as Interim Product Owner for the existing ERP landscape and ensuring business continuity

• ERP Transformation – supporting the migration from Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as a Project Manager

• Operational Core (ERP) – establishing dedicated teams for ERP Support, Feature Development, and ERP Migration

• Modern Workplace – initiating the transition towards a Microsoft 365-based cloud workplace environment

• ConnectHub – establishing a dedicated team to drive integration and connectivity initiatives

• Warehouse Operations – building a cross-functional team to support logistics and warehouse-related capabilities

• Maintenance & Operations (M&O) – introducing a dedicated team focused on stable operations and continuous improvement

• AI Initiatives – identifying and promoting practical Artificial Intelligence use cases across the IT department

• As Interim Chief Digital Officer (CDO) for a leading industrial supplier with a strong e-commerce focus (often described as 'the Amazon for industrial goods') responsible for leading the digital and organizational transformation while reporting directly to executive leadership.

• Introduced agile principles and ways of working across the organization and transformed the traditionally structured IT department into cross-functional Scrum and Kanban teams focused on transparency, collaboration, and customer value delivery.

• Redesigned the entire IT organization by establishing a modern operating model, introducing new roles such as Product Owner, Scrum Master and Solution Architect and strengthening the organization through strategic hiring and targeted capability development.

• Recruited and onboarded Agile Coaches to accelerate the transformation and personally managed and coached Scrum Masters as well as IT department leaders to foster servant leadership, self-management and a culture of continuous improvement.

• Implemented Flight Levels practices based on Klaus Leopold to align strategic objectives, cross-functional coordination and operational execution across the organization.

• Introduced a ticketing system to increase transparency and enable data-driven decision-making, flow-based work management, and greater accountability at all levels.

• Established and supported multiple cross-functional teams, including the Operational Core (ERP) domain with dedicated streams for Support, Feature Development and ERP Migration, as well as teams responsible for Warehouse Operations, Maintenance & Operations (M&O), Modern Workspace and ConnectHub.

• Acted as Interim Product Owner for the operation and enhancement of the existing ERP landscape while supporting the migration from Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as a Project Manager.

• Collaborated with the selected implementation partner to design and establish the project organization and target operating model for the ERP transformation, introducing agile delivery structures and ways of working.

• Facilitated the alignment between business, IT and the external vendor and played a key role in negotiating the contractual framework and delivery model to ensure a sustainable foundation for the transformation program.

• Initiated the strategic modernization of the workplace environment through the adoption of Microsoft 365 cloud capabilities, establishing the foundation for enhanced collaboration, scalability and future digital services.

• Launched AI initiatives to identify practical business use cases and promote the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence across the IT department.

• Encouraged self-management and empowered teams to take ownership of decisions, delivery and continuous improvement.

Project language: German

Migration preparation for the upcoming ERP system change: recording all ERP-related business processes, analyzing pain points, and consolidating them into process views. Ensuring that every process can be transferred to the target system or that an alternative exists. Result: a solid working basis for system integrators and a company ready for migration.

BPMN · Camunda

• Coordinated team readiness and process setup for a strategic product team of four teams (three subteams in one Scrum team and one Kanban team) by initiating strategic discussions and designing training workshops to establish a solid foundation for Scrum and Kanban practices.
• Led ongoing Scrum team activities, continuously improved processes and KPIs with each sprint, and collaborated closely with the Product Owner and stakeholders on roadmap and epic planning.
• Worked in a German/Swiss German environment and navigated linguistic and cultural nuances to optimize team dynamics and project outcomes.
• Supported agile practices across four teams (20–25 members) and continuously optimized existing agile methods tailored to each team’s dynamics, including product development and operations.

• Repaired a broken “ScrumBan” process, then established a pure Kanban system; increased output in the Kanban flow by 22% within four weeks

• Increased team autonomy and decision-making ability by implementing new decision strategies; resulting in up to 25% better outcomes

• Redesigned retrospectives (including one-to-one coaching and workshops), which led to consistent implementation of the resulting action items

• Intensive coaching of Product Owners (POs) to develop and support “Empowered Teams”, alongside leadership development to place agile frameworks and methods in a realistic context (“de-illusioning”)

• Supported change management processes to promote an agile company culture among management and teams, improving internal communication to increase transparency and effectiveness in agile processes

• Backlog Management
• Scrum Master
• PO for the Ministry of Justice
• Optimizing Agile Processes
• Classic Business Analysis, User Stories and Testing
• Operational Topics like Nagios Monitoring and Incident Handling

Tools:

• Jira / Confluence
• SQL Developer
• Elastic / Kibana
• Visual Studio Code

• Deputy project manager for one of the largest projects in the Customs Union Code program, CEIS CDA for the Federal Ministry of Finance
• Budget planning and control
• Negotiations and ongoing communication with all relevant stakeholders
• Risk identification and assessment, and development of risk mitigation strategies
• Creation and implementation of action strategies to achieve project goals
• Efficient resource planning and allocation to support project requirements
• Managing the release process using agile methods and coordinating sprints for analysis, development, and testing phases
• Process optimizations and regular reporting for progress monitoring and decision making

support SAFe adoption at team, ART and Portfolio level with consulting, coaching and training. Establish hierarchical enterprise backlog and Kanban Systems integrating portfolio, value stream and team level. Make e2e value stream flow across organisational boundaries visible and measurable. Teach "stop starting, start finishing" and Limit WiP.

• Challenge: poor project results and team performance, very poor work environment
• Solution: introduction of agile planning processes, teaching agile principles within the SAFe framework
• Innovation: consistent use of agile methods; introduction of requirements engineering, story writing
• Leadership: interface with the board, program management Opel Europe, GM USA and international markets
• Result: most productive team in the ART; increased planning accuracy to over 85%
• Team size: 10

• Agile Transformation Coach within an SAP-driven End-to-End Lead-to-Cash program, supporting leadership and management teams in implementing and evolving the Sherpa Way of Working, strengthening Agile practices, role definitions and responsibility clarity (RACI), and delivery effectiveness
• Member of the leadership core team for the Way of Working, shaping and evolving agile operating models, challenging existing practices, and driving pragmatic, system-level improvements
• Conceptualized a Polarion-based Scrum Master dashboard as a single, role-based entry point for sprint status, dependencies, risks, and governance artefacts, reducing reporting overhead and improving transparency
• Provided targeted 1:1 coaching to the Master Scrum Master and Scrum Masters, strengthening leadership capability, role effectiveness, and support for team-specific challenges, including the redesign of Scrum Master syncs and collaboration formats
• Worked with teams and leadership on End-to-End Lead-to-Cash process analysis and documentation in SAP Signavio, supporting alignment, transparency, and a shared understanding of process expectations across teams

• Redesign of system error messages for Jira & Confluence
• Evaluation and implementation of new system extensions
• Analysis and design of new business processes with UX expertise
• Support for the implementation of SAFe

I support the development of an industrial automation and communication product in which hardware, firmware, embedded software, system architecture, and testing work closely together. As a coach and technical sparring partner, I support product and project owners as well as development teams in turning product goals into a clear technical delivery structure.

• Technical Vision & Strategy: translated product goals into prioritized requirements, milestones, decisions, and executable work packages for HW-/SW teams.
• HW-/SW Collaboration: structured the interfaces between hardware, firmware, Embedded Linux/RTOS, fieldbus/connectivity, system test, and product management; made risks and dependencies transparent.
• Coaching & Leadership Sparring: clarified roles, responsibilities, prioritization, and decision paths with technical leads and teams and strengthened cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Methods & environment: Polarion, GitHub, requirements engineering, configuration management, PROFINET, embedded systems, agile delivery, coaching, and facilitation.