WordPress Experts

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: building up Flight Levels practices within IT 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: reorganizing and supporting the ERP migration as a Project Manager; Phase 1 (financial accounting) live since October 2025

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

Integration: 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 for system engineering, security, stable operations and continuous improvement

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

As Interim Head of IT for a German medium-sized industrial distributor, I am responsible for 31 IT employees and lead the digital and organizational transformation, reporting directly to executive leadership. I took over an IT department with almost no basic structures – no clear roles, processes, documentation or ticket system – and with significant technical debt that tied up most of its capacity. Introduced agile principles and ways of working in the IT 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.

Aligned IT-internal planning across eight teams to three Flight Levels based on Klaus Leopold (strategy, coordination, team), laying the foundation for later company-wide portfolio management. Consolidated the backlog of more than 10 workstreams and prioritized it by business value and cost of delay. 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) including system engineering and security, Modern Workplace, Data Quality and integration initiatives. Worked closely with Agile Coaches to support team development, remove impediments, and continuously improve delivery effectiveness.

Acted as Interim Product Owner for the operation and enhancement of the existing ERP landscape while supporting the ERP migration as a Project Manager. Reorganized the project organization and had the already negotiated contract with the implementation partner realigned with a focus on approach and overall responsibility; Phase 1 (financial accounting) has been live since October 2025. 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.

• Industry: Insurance, Trade, IT
• Customers & Projects: Consulting and selling insurance and similar services
• Main tasks: Insurance consulting (health insurance, retirement planning, wealth building); commercial services, inside and field sales; sales data analysis and forecasting; customer consulting and support; opening a new sales headquarters for private and business customers; business development & innovation management; business use case development; process optimization; stakeholder management; team leadership and training; preparation and delivery of trainings;
• Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Draw.IO, Camunda 8, Java (8, 17,21,25), Git, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Data REST, Spring Web, Spring Security, J-Unit, Playwright, Lombock, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL (16, 17 18), pgAdmin, Docker, LLMs, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports

• Set up backend assistants, prompt engineering, customer communication, growth strategy

• Successful implementation of AI shopping assistants e.g. Thalgo.de

• Built a customized MediaWiki instance, including installation, MySQL database, SSL, and automatic backups
• Set up user roles (Admin, Mod, Verified, User) and a permissions system
• FlaggedRevisions for editorial review workflows · Commenting and rating extensions

• Develop custom AI agents delivering 90%+ reduction in manual workload and significant efficiency gains
• Provide end-to-end AI strategy consulting: from digital assessment to implementation and change management
• Design and deliver tailored training programs and workshops on AI adoption, prompt engineering, and automation
• Support clients in implementing scalable AI solutions integrated with existing technology stacks
• Focus areas: AI strategy, automation, workflow optimization, and capability building

I continuously expand my expertise in AI and automation. I work with ChatGPT, OpenAI, Manus, Gemini, MS CoPilot, APIs, LangChain, Hugging Face, Manus, TensorFlow, and Auto-GPT, as well as Python-based ML frameworks and MLOps tools, to intelligently transform traditional software development, analysis, and testing processes.

Full management of the recruiting ramp-up in the Semiconductor (semiconductor manufacturing) area, with end-to-end management of all recruiting activities. Operational and strategic recruiting & talent acquisition in the areas of Engineering, Back-Office & Manufacturing in the cleanroom. Filling key positions during a critical ramp-up phase. Recruiting technical professionals and specialists. Close coordination with hiring managers and HR business partners. Optimization of existing processes. Conducting and evaluating interviews together with the specialist department. Salary and contract negotiations.

• Managed the entire recruiting ramp-up in the Semiconductor area (end-to-end)
• Focus: Engineering and high-volume recruiting in production (semiconductors)
• Recruiting technical professionals for Engineering, Back-Office & Manufacturing in the cleanroom
• Stakeholder alignment with hiring managers and HR business partners
• Building new and optimizing existing processes

Tools: SAP SuccessFactors, MS-Office, MS-Teams

• End-to-end analysis and optimization of existing processes in campaign management, contract management and district heating construction/construction coordination
• Development of automated contract management and transformation scenarios, including software selection and integration
• Analysis of ERP, chat, RCS messaging, consent management and tracking
• Preparation of recommendations, decision proposals and presentations for the executive board
• Use of AI for process optimization
• Tools: Apple Office, Microsoft 365, Teams, Claude, ChatGPT

Planning, execution & moderation of crisis communication and reputation management

AQIM is a non-profit organization based in Austria. An association of interim managers from Germany and Austria. Founded in December 2024. Multi-part training with workshops and consulting for preventive crisis communication, in cooperation with the founding members and those responsible for communication. To assess crisis potential for the market entry strategy and ahead of a digital campaign.

The project in a nutshell:

Consulting and training for the purpose of:

• Analysis of crisis potential as a new market entrant and its internet-based communication activities
• Planning and developing crisis communication with targeted measures
• Developing a crisis plan to minimize reputation risks in an emergency
• Conducting training and information sessions

Success:

• What started as a one-time consulting event for preparing an information campaign became a multi-part workshop on preventive crisis communication. This not only gave the organization expertise and confidence in the event of acute challenges, but also gave the participating interim managers new skills for their day-to-day work on assignments
• The workshop enabled those responsible to launch the information campaign that was being prepared at the time and planned for six months, as scheduled at the end of January 2026 on social media
• Careful scheduling and defining how to handle critical voices in terms of terminology and tone, as well as compliance rules, ensured a smooth start and run of a 3-month information campaign

Sub-project lead in an agile IT environment

Leading a software development team (10 employees)

• Leading a software development team with 10 employees
• Budget responsibility approx. 3 million euros per year
• Conducting employee and job interviews
• Responsibility for resource planning (budget and employees)
• Digitalization of a web interface
• Regular reporting to customers and stakeholders (C-level)
• Product management: developing and implementing product strategies; defining requirements to guide product development
• Structuring product development & continuous testing efficiently to quickly incorporate feedback & compliance points
• Close collaboration with stakeholders & various teams to understand requirements, set priorities, ensure rollout, and increase user-friendliness
• Project experience in an energy industry company, including the functioning of energy markets, the basics of energy generation and distribution, as well as current challenges and developments in the industry
• Project experience in the railway sector - including the structure and operation of railway systems.
• Project experience within the 16.7 Hz traction power sector incl. knowledge of regulatory processes
• Formulating the sub-project charter and the project profile according to the project standard together with the project management
• Controlling service delivery according to the project charter
• Planning and controlling human resources including budget planning for the sub-project
• Ensuring the work capacity of the sub-project participants, e.g. by requesting access rights and documents for the sub-project team
• Planning and control for the respective sub-project (time, scope, budget) including the creation of necessary documents
• Alignment with the business department and Product Owners to plan the sub-project scope and the corresponding implications
• Executing milestone planning according to the agreed process model
• Effort estimation and support of sub-project controlling as well as overall project controlling in forecasting and planning
• Reporting sub-project status (according to status slide template) including progress (according to progress measurement)
• Analyzing, preparing, and addressing action and decision requirements
• Escalating sub-project issues to the project management
• Creating and managing Change Requests (CR)
• Quality assessment of completed task packages from a project management perspective (time, scope, and budget)
• Implementation management of the overarching guidelines and requirements in the sub-project, supported by cross-functional roles on the functional and technical side.
• Identifying, managing, documenting, and communicating opportunities, risks, and dependencies within and across sub-projects
• Supporting project management in creating the overall project plan and overall status reports
• Preparing and managing commissioning including the required documents and protection needs assessment

Scrum Master in an agile IT environment supporting a software development team in the full-stack area (7 people)

• Close collaboration with stakeholders & various teams to understand requirements, set priorities, ensure rollout, and increase user-friendliness
• Implementation of the selected Scrum method, including the required events, meetings, artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown charts), metrics, as well as conducting required training in an agile IT environment
• Preparation of Scrum events such as Daily, retrospectives, Review, Sprint planning, estimation, and refinement (agile way of working)
• Moderation of retrospectives and elimination of obstacles to move the team and product forward
• Preparation of action items and retros via whiteboard and Figma
• Application and improvement of agile methods such as Kanban, Scrum, SAFe, or Scrum of Scrums
• Tracking the "Definition of Done" and "Definition of Ready" for all work results of the development team
• Advising on information flow and communication improvements between Product Owner and project team
• Experience with automation, validation such as mandatory field checks, notification functions, creation of filters, boards, and reports via JQL, and setting up cycle time
• Use of Jira & Confluence
• Setting up a progress measurement for project management to transparently map planned vs. actual team capacities and actual efforts for user stories
• Measuring team progress: creating team KPIs: "velocity", "burn-down chart", "throughput", "costs", "quality", "scope"
• Evaluation of agile metrics, process management, and process modeling methods (BPMN, EPC, UML)
• Communication and moderation know-how
• Methodological competence proven in conflict discussions

Most mid-sized companies already have their numbers. What is missing is the translation: a dashboard with forty tiles does not answer a single question that is actually asked in management.

Analysis

• Evaluation of existing data with Python and SQL
• Checking data quality and methodology before making a statement
• The result is an analysis that leads toward a concrete decision

Preparation

• Reports in Power BI and Tableau
• Interactive calculators and visualizations on the web
• Presentations and specialist texts for customers, sales and the public
• Analysis and communication from one source — that

• Clarification of project objectives, scope and the target business vision for building the AI-based knowledge database.
• Derivation of the initial architecture and implementation strategy for the Zasterbot chatbot, including separation of the MVP and further development stages.
• Development of a target business vision for building a structured knowledge database and integrating a future chatbot.
• Derivation and prioritization of use cases for information retrieval and provision by the chatbot.
• Modeling of data structures and flows for the effective organization of the knowledge database on the Base44 platform.
• Design and implementation of data models for storing and linking relevant information.
• Development of processes for extracting, analyzing and preparing raw data for the knowledge database.
• Ensuring data consistency and quality as the basis for the future chatbot.
• Planning the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for precise and context-specific answers.
• Implementation of functions for analyzing and displaying data from the knowledge database.
• Use of the Base44 platform with JSON Schema-based entities and a flexible permission concept.
• Implementation of Deno functions for backend logic, event processing and connecting external APIs.
• Integration of OpenAI services for initial data analysis.

• Technical lead of a four-person development team during the two-year redevelopment of the sonnenklar.TV travel portal with over 10,000 daily visitors
• Replaced an established legacy architecture based on Laminas (Zend Framework) and Elasticsearch with a headless platform based on TYPO3 LTS and MariaDB — consolidated two systems into one and significantly reduced operational and maintenance effort
• Built the frontend independently with Vue.js, Nuxt, TypeScript and TailwindCSS; developed most of the component library independently
• Migrated the editorial workflow for over 30 editors from a custom-built backend to the TYPO3 backend
• Significantly reduced loading times for core pages; continuous delivery via Jenkins and GitLab CI

Position ended due to operational reasons as part of staff reductions following the decline in demand in the travel industry.

Operational end-to-end recruiting in a mid-sized company environment. Main focus on filling positions in the German market and internationally (Switzerland), with a focus on Sales and Blue Collar roles (Junior – Teamlead) for Falk & Ross. Stakeholder management, high-volume recruiting, and active sourcing. Ensuring an optimal candidate experience and conducting interviews.

• Stakeholder-Management
• High Volume Sales Recruiting / Blue Collar
• Filling key positions in the areas of: Sales and Blue Collar (including Field Sales Representatives, Inside Sales, Head of Sales)
• International recruiting for Switzerland
• Tools: Microsoft Teams, TestGorilla, LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed Smart Sourcing