Kai Z.
Project and Product Management (Product Owner) • Project Accelerator
Experience
Oct 2023 - Oct 2024
1 year 1 monthMaastricht, Netherlands
Project and Product Management (Product Owner) • Project Accelerator
MediaMarktSaturn Technologies GmbH
- MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group (Media-Saturn-Holding GmbH) based in Ingolstadt operates Europe’s largest consumer electronics retail chain.
- In the project, we replaced old in-store legacy applications for POS (Point of Sale) and merchandise management.
- I took over product responsibility for cash registers and replaced our in-house solution (Tiger) with Toshiba’s standard product (Visual Store).
- Methodical and functional guidance was needed as the project was off track when I started.
- Project management • Project Accelerator (methodical consulting)
- Resumed project structures for stalled product management
- Integrated into MMS-Technologies’ portfolio management with software product lifecycle management (SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, Scrum@Scale)
- Reorganized project content by creating Big Pictures and Story Maps, breaking use cases into capabilities, epics, and user stories
- Introduced quality gates to define deliverables for status transitions (DoD and DoR) and maturity assessments
- Set up a workstream model to optimize parallel development pipelines (SAFe release stream, Spotify model)
- Integrated a DevOps approach, including ITSM (ITIL) and environment handling, test and quality management, and test automation
- Restructured Confluence/Jira and established controlling and reporting structures
- Product Owner for the new cash register (NextGen Checkout)
- Led product management through the first pilot (including PoC) and initiated release and change management. The project focused on cash registers and self check-out while preparing PayOnFloor and other innovations with an iterative approach.
- Coordinated product planning with teams across domains (Global Loyalty, Promotions & Couponing, POSA, ERP, SAP FI, Duties/Taxes) and represented the product in big room planning and joint refinements
- Managed international internal and external teams/providers with common collaboration tools (Dev: Romania; Cloud provider: Italy; SW architecture: Spain; POS manufacturer: Italy; Business Owner: Netherlands; dependent teams: Germany)
- Planned server infrastructures (Google Cloud and MS Azure) and related services
- Participated in hardware tenders (e.g., touchpads), development, and support services
Jul 2022 - Aug 2023
1 year 2 monthsWiesbaden, Germany
Program & Project Management, Overall Project Lead (Register Census 2031)
German Federal Statistical Office
- Register Census 2031 is a key future project of official statistics and a major driver of digital, deregulatory administration in Germany (eGovernment).
- The combined model meets expanded national and EU requirements (periodicity, geocoding, attribute sets) for population data delivery.
- I served as a subcontractor for the consortium of BearingPoint and McKinsey.
- Methodical consulting and procurement support (with PMO)
- Lifecycle management consulting (lean-agile scaled approaches combined with V-Model XT Bund and procurement support)
- Defined requirements processes and set standards (with quality management)
- Identified project elements (epics, user stories) and quality gates (deliverables, definition of ready, definition of done)
- Converted a linear, sequential approach to an iterative, agile lean model
- Created a risk management system using Jira/Confluence; introduced risk classes for assessment, monitoring, mitigation, and escalation
- Stakeholder management and communications strategy definition
- Collaborated on procurement criteria between IT service providers and requirements management
- Program and project leadership (overall project and the combined model)
- Time and milestone planning (including legal Milestones A, B, C) for the program and subproject (MS Project, Atlassian Jira, Confluence)
- Task planning for the IT services department, factoring in upcoming milestones and budget constraints, including planning for 2023 onward
- Independently reviewed feedback and reported program/project progress and improvement options
- Product management (e.g., Big Picture and Story Map in virtual Conceptboard)
- Defined and integrated requirements analysis (ARIS/BPMN)
- Derived artifacts, epics, features, and stories from the functional blueprint; historical tracking to form implementation increments
- Reporting (time, budget, scope, risk) for IT project management
- Coordinated suppliers: Capgemini (nearshore/offshore dev), ITZBund, Dataport, internal units of the statistical office
- Special analysis of IT strategy (reuse of Census 2022 components)
- Impact analysis on cost and schedule for scenarios (retain 2022 census, new development, use line functions)
- Evaluated technical and domain architectures
- IT security, governance, compliance, legal conformity
- Defined digitalization requirements for German register modernization
- Developed ITSM and data protection requirements (incl. GDPR) for ISO 27001 certification with BSI
Jul 2021 - Jun 2022
1 yearWiesbaden, Germany
Multi-Project Management • Member of IT Service Cluster Leadership • Department Organization (Census 2022)
German Federal Statistical Office
- Census 2022 is Germany’s ten-year population survey, gathering data on people, households, and housing.
- It provides demographic, social, and economic data for policy, planning, and research.
- With its large budget, it’s the EU’s biggest public sector and Germany’s largest digitalization project.
- Served as a subcontractor to BearingPoint and McKinsey.
- Multi-project management (lean agile and V-Model XT Bund mix)
- Monitored project progress (Atlassian Jira) and reporting needs
- Created cross-cluster risk management, ensuring progress data on quality, tests, deployments, and changes for upcoming releases
- Advised and coordinated de-escalation measures (task forces)
- Supported the census reference date (legal milestone for data collection start)
- IT security, governance, compliance, legal conformity
- Managed and planned special releases to maintain IT security (BSI compliance)
- Central internal contact for ISO 27001 compliance
- Internal data protection liaison during data collection
- IT service management and change management
- Defined service catalog, change management system, and supplier coordination via Jira/Confluence: Capgemini, ITZBund, Werum, Bavarian Statistics Office, internal units
- Defined approval workflows within the statistical office
- Cross-environment management (environment handling for DEV-TEST-MIRROR-PROD)
- Initiated synchronization of the office’s CR-Jira with ITZBund’s Remedy system
- Defined end-of-life for systems and environment decommission plans
- Member of IT service cluster leadership
- Cluster areas: application analysis, software development (nearshore/offshore), software architecture, identity/access management, quality/test, configuration management, dev tools, development ops, system architecture, infrastructure, operations coordination, release/rollout, integration management
- Analyzed and documented processes for handing program outputs to IT operations (operations plan, notification workflows, system adaptation, service definitions, documentation)
- Established and enforced a frozen zone around the census reference date (May 2022)
- Guided restructuring of configuration management, development ops, and dev tools departments
- Methodological alignment to Scrum@Scale (Scrum of Scrums), incorporated communities of practice, revised workflows, integrated DevOps
- Resource planning, interviews participation, hiring decisions
- Created automated real-time reporting on task areas, defined SLAs and escalation levels
Nov 2020 - May 2021
7 monthsMunich, Germany
Agile Organizational Management • Change Management (Agile Coach • Agile Mentor)
1st Solution Consulting GmbH
- Focus on personnel services in contracting (T&M and fixed-scope) and temporary staffing.
- Project goal: implement agility, optimize business processes, and expand partner management to boost service capability.
- Due to two staff departures, temporarily managed Deutsche Bahn account, including key negotiations with service procurement.
- Introduced agility in the organization, optimized business processes
- Implemented OKR model to map strategic goals and cascade them across departments
- Coached agile mindset & culture, including servant leadership
- Introduced central organizational change management with lean approaches
- Presented Kanban flight boards (Level 1: operational, L2: end-to-end, L3: strategy)
- Introduced virtual fairs, webcasts, workshops, and other collaboration tools via Miro alongside MS Teams, Zoom, WebEx
- Expanded and advised on tools and workflows (MS Office, XMind, Zoho HR, StaffIT CRM, Atlassian Trello, MS Visio)
- Corporate management and strategic partner management
- Process and organizational fit-gap analysis to enable IT and telecom services; built network of local, nearshore, and offshore partners
- Defined cross-organizational PMO to offer active portfolio management, including automated controlling (scope, time, budget, risk, reporting), service management (ITIL, service catalogs, SLAs), and stakeholder management
- Defined governance/compliance elements for smooth contracting
- Represented smart ICT for Deutsche Bahn
- Built national and international partner networks for full customer support (IBM, Capgemini, Lufthansa Industry Solutions, Coforge…)
- Led provider management negotiations and purchasing for framework agreements
- Managed external providers and specialists for Deutsche Bahn and other corporate clients
- Handled complex IT and telecom project requests
- Scoped teams/projects as fixed-scope or service
- Calculated fixed-scope (with risk management) and services (ITIL/SLA management)
- Developed concepts and analyses of project content (technical and process)
- Coordinated and reviewed recruiting for individual roles and negotiated contracts
- Delivered training on organization, recruiting, and sales
Jan 2020 - Sep 2020
9 monthsMunich, Germany
Agile Sales Management • Transition Management (Agile Coach • Agile Mentor)
Confidential (NDA in place)
- Personnel service provider specializing in IT contracting, temporary staffing, and permanent placement.
- Developed and successfully implemented agile sales management.
- This model combines IT program/project management and production elements using the "Salesgile" method.
- Despite economic challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, we met revenue and margin targets and increased employee satisfaction.
- Designed, introduced & coached new sales structure with Salesgile
- Agile mindset & principles (Agile, Lean, Kaizen)
- Agile leadership (servant leadership, change management)
- Sales objectives (OKRs, Business Model Canvas)
- Sales target analysis (existing/potential clients) akin to IT product backlog and sales stories
- Sales planning (OKR cycle, Sales Scrum, agile boards, DoD, methodical CoP, sales points, order points), plus sales sprint backlog
- Scaled methods (Scrum@Scale, SAFe…)
- Sales execution (Sales Design Thinking approach, funnel, opportunity & risk management)
- Team commissions (team-based incentives)
- Built and advised on tools and processes (MS Project, Visio, Office, XMind, Jira, Confluence, Trello, in-house CRM, other collaboration tools)
- Restructured sales and other departments with agile methods for simpler implementation
- Developed Salesgile method
- Applied IT project management methods to organizational development (sales & growth, company objectives, goals, coordination)
- Studied agile trends (e.g., Spotify model)
- Adapted and tested innovations in sales
- SalesOps inspired by DevOps for continuous collaboration between delivery and sales
- SalesPicture/TenderPicture inspired by big pictures and story mapping to handle complex tenders and prioritize prospects
Jul 2019 - Dec 2019
6 monthsHagen, Germany
Sourcing Tender Manager • Tender Manager (incl. Requirements Engineering • Agile Coach) • Project Manager / Product Owner
CHRIST Juweliere und Uhrmacher seit 1863 GmbH
- Renowned jeweler Christ with over 250 outlets in Germany successfully implemented and selected a new POS system (and services) via an RFP.
- Optimized sales processes for a modern, cloud-based omnichannel operation.
- Introduced mobile devices for customer service and met fiscalization requirements.
- Sourcing & tender management (mix of software licenses, fixed-scope, and services)
- Derived IT strategy from corporate strategy to meet future system requirements
- Created, managed, and evaluated tenders with TCO calculation
- Requirements analysis (as-is vs. to-be) to identify core processes
- Defined use cases, epics, and user stories (with refinements)
- Validated requirements with users (interviews with store staff, customers, service desk)
- Built a scoring catalog (≈350 criteria) and weighted results
- Selected and negotiated with vendors relevant to Christ jewelers
- Recommended actions
- Defined SLAs, penalties, maintenance, support (ITIL), and payment extensions
- IT security, governance, compliance, legal conformity
- Mapped fiscalization requirements to the new POS solution
- Securely integrated customer data systems
- Established governance and compliance policies (rules and measurability)
- Project manager • Agile coach • ScrumMaster
- Coached teams on Scrum and Kanban using Atlassian products
- Set up the agile project and defined collaboration for requirements management (big picture, story mapping)
- Assessed impacts on ERP, PIM, logistics, inventory, eCommerce (SAP Hybris), loyalty (Payback), repair, customs, payment (Alipay, WeChat)…
- Automated project reporting (time, budget, scope, risk with mitigations)
- Implemented Scrum artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, increments), roles (PO, ScrumMaster, team), and ceremonies (planning, daily, review, retrospective)
- Updated service desk (internal and vendor SLAs) and new service catalog
- Defined workflows, status, project guardrails, and advised on Jira/Confluence use
Jan 2018 - Jun 2019
1 year 6 monthsFrankfurt am Main, Germany
Agile Transition Manager • CPO - Chief Product Owner (RTE) • Tender/Bid Manager / Project Manager
Loyalty Partner Solutions GmbH
- LPS provides loyalty, discount, and bonus systems like BahnCard, BahnBonus, Miles&More (American Express/Payback affiliate).
- The project introduced and shifted from waterfall (PMI-like) to SAFe using scalable agile methods.
- Worked on DB Vertrieb’s central sales project Vendo, advancing systems and digital strategy.
- Led tender and PoC project for IaaS migration of BahnCard/BahnBonus.
- Transition Manager for SAFe implementation
- Transformed waterfall structures to agile (SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, LeSS) with continuous improvement
- Agile coaching and mentoring of ScrumMasters, Product Owners, seven dev teams, and client stakeholders
- Defined software lifecycle from vision to app operations
- Conducted sprint reviews, release retros, planning conferences, steering committees, effort negotiations
- Introduced epics, features, user stories
- Established quality gates (deliverables, DoD, DoR)
- Formed and led CoPs
- Adapted methods for QA, ops, and support (DevOps)
- Set up Jira/Confluence processes and workflows
- Chief Product Owner (RTE) / program management
- Led program increments as CPO
- Handled eGovernment, digitalization, and plausibility topics
- Managed app development for BahnBonus and data for DB Navigator
- Reviewed requirements management (ARIS, BPMN, UML)
- Automated program reporting
- Reported to DB board (projects, analyses, PoCs)
- Resource planning for 2019 projects and highlighted gaps, supported hiring
- Managed tenders on vendor side
- EU tender for eLOK PriKu in the cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) using DB Enterprise Cloud (AWS, Azure)
- Feasibility study (AWS) for existing Oracle Siebel
- Calculated ROI for on-prem to IaaS transition
- Assessed Siebel element transfer to other CRMs
- Conducted PoC to secure SLAs (install, operate, load tests with real data)
- Defined parallel on-prem operation and shutdown plan post-migration
Apr 2017 - Dec 2017
9 monthsMunich, Germany
IT Strategy • Project Manager / Product Owner • Technical Consultant • Partner Manager
Wee Business GmbH / WeeConomy AG
- Wee ran an international cashback system (loyalty & affiliate) for local retail and e-commerce (later insolvent due to COVID).
- Developed an IT strategy and restructured software development and IT operations, extending card and app tech for mobile payment.
- Directed sales strategy and secured partners and key accounts.
- Served as technical consultant for innovation topics.
- Restructured IT and developed IT strategy
- Organizational development and defined company goals, derived IT strategy key elements, built portfolio management
- Conducted fit-gap analysis and removed legacy structures in dev, ops, and service
- Introduced PRINCE2 Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and change management
- Coached agile mindset and servant leadership
- Coordinated external staffing and contractors (acceptance criteria, test scenarios)
- Advised on contract and SLA management (ITIL)
- Conducted vendor scouting, evaluated nearshore/offshore options
- Led projects, requirements analysis, and innovation management
- Managed mobile payment innovation, ensured cashback features
- Payment methods: cashback balance, prepaid, postpaid
- Feasibility studies and partner selection
- Iterative pilot launches with rollouts and reporting
- Defined roles and permissions (project paused due to missing controls)
- Supported go-lives at events and marketing planning using developed tech
- Managed vendors, external dev, and partners
- Continuous reporting (time, budget, scope, risk) to the board
- IT security, governance, compliance, regulation
- Met banking regulations (e-money license)
- Implemented KYC and accounting-level requirements for real-money cashback accounts
- Consulted key accounts and sales teams
- Technical consultant in key account negotiations with major clients and sports partners (SpVgg Unterhaching, EC Bad Tölz)
May 2014 - Mar 2017
2 years 11 monthsFrankfurt am Main, Germany
Program & Project Manager • Business Analyst • Regional Sales Manager • Partner Manager
VOQUZ IT Solutions GmbH
- VOQUZ combines IT consulting, solutions, and external project support.
- In 2014, DV-RATIO AG was acquired by Cloud7 IT Solutions GmbH, forming VOQUZ IT Solutions GmbH.
- Post-acquisition, sales and recruiting processes were optimized, and the Frankfurt office was expanded.
- Secured new key accounts with own and team responsibility.
- Established a hybrid project management competency center for clients like Deutsche Börse and HZD.
- Managed multiple IT projects and programs (Scrum, Kanban, PMI, Prince2, ITIL)
- Built an IT competence center for method consulting to tailor ideal approaches for large projects
- Took over individual client projects
- Transitioned methodologies and supported iterations
- Integrated service structures and defined service catalogs
- Optimized group service processes
- Defined corporate and IT strategy, cascaded across departments
- Led staff in a matrix across all offices
- Created business plans for services
- Coached and trained staff in Frankfurt and Ismaning
- Regional sales lead for Frankfurt
- Led staff and forecasts
- Strategic and operational sales of software, IT services up to C-level; managed sales projects
- Tender management and partnership development
- Advised on managed service providers and vendor management systems
- SAP license and software asset management, sales
- Built SAP license measurement structures with samQ for precise license needs
- Conducted and managed license measurement projects for various clients
Summary
Program & Project Manager • Principal PMO • Method Coach: 20+ years of experience in successful (multi-) project and program management using scalable, agile, hybrid, and classical methods. Advised, initiated, developed, and executed organizational change-management measures to optimally adapt project management methods to the project context. In addition, I took on a wide range of tasks along the product and software development lifecycle.
Strategic Officer • Corporate Management & Development: 20+ years of expertise in transforming and strategically aligning business units, focusing on IT and sales. Roles included senior and hands-on consultant advising executive management (CEO, CIO). A well-thought-out IT strategy supports business goals by fostering innovation and increasing efficiency. It enables companies to adapt to market changes and gain competitive advantages.
IT Service Manager • Change Manager • Release Manager • Requirements Manager: 10+ years as an IT service manager and change consultant responsible for smooth operations and maximum customer satisfaction. By focusing on efficiency and innovation, I optimized and automated IT services and drove productivity. I proactively tackled challenges and successfully implemented IT strategies to shape the company’s digital future.
Sales, Partner & Supplier Management: 15+ years of expertise in optimizing business with comprehensive sales, partner, and supplier management. Building strong relationships with partners and suppliers is essential to efficiently achieve goals. By implementing tailored strategies, I boosted revenues and optimized collaboration across the supply chain. Extensive experience in conducting tenders (including public sector/EU tenders).
Languages
German
NativeEnglish
AdvancedHungarian
ElementaryEducation
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Economics
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IT Management Assistant
Certifications & licenses
BA Foundation
EXIN BCS
BA Practice
EXIN BCS
BA Requirements Engineering
EXIN BCS
ITIL 4 Digital & IT Strategy
ITIL 4 Direct, Plan, Improve
ITIL 4 Foundation
ITIL 4 Strategic Leader
ITIL v3 Foundation
Prince2 Foundation
Prince2 Practitioner
SCRUM Master
SCRUM Product Owner
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