Stefan Simrock
Sabbatical
Experience
Aug 2024 - Dec 2025
5 monthsSabbatical
Sep 2023 - Jul 2024
11 monthsOverall IT Project Manager
Uniper
- Overall management of an implementation project for an IT solution for energy trading and delivery.
- An off-the-shelf product was customized to support various company-specific business processes. The system is intended to replace an existing legacy application and support highly critical 24/7 business processes.
- Joined the ongoing project during a downturn. Developed a long-term strategy and realigned the project. Planned, managed and controlled project tasks.
- Optimized the project organization with over 20 members and focused the project on achieving agreed objectives. Classic project management incorporating agile methods (backlog, dailies, etc.).
- Project planning and control, as well as introduction of dependency and risk management. Definition and agreement of measurable project goals between client and vendor. Continuous monitoring of project progress and reporting to the steering committee and top-level management.
- Stakeholder management and vendor coordination: alignment and communication in a demanding and challenging stakeholder and vendor environment. Improved communication structures. Increased transparency and measurability of results.
Apr 2023 - Aug 2023
5 monthsIT Project Manager
Deutsche Giganetz
- Led an IT project within a strategic corporate initiative for fiber expansion and marketing.
- Requirements management: gathered business requirements from sales and commercial departments as well as from technical construction areas. Conducted requirements workshops with the specialist departments.
- Developed an IT strategy and coordinated the creation of a solution design, taking business requirements into account.
- Coordinated with stakeholders, business units and IT departments.
- Project planning and control; project reporting to the Project Office.
Jul 2022 - Feb 2025
2 years 8 monthsAgile Coach
- Supported the implementation of agile ways of working and agile transformation, particularly regarding the agile product and the role of the Product Owner:
- Stakeholder mapping and stakeholder communication
- Backlog creation and management
- Conducted team vision & strategy workshops
- Realigned product portfolio
- Methods and tools for roadmap management
- Applied design thinking methods
- Worked with agile metrics (velocity, burndown)
- Used agile development practices (e.g., pair programming, continuous integration/delivery)
- Continuous improvement process (CIP) and feedback process (demos, reviews, retrospectives)
Nov 2019 - Jun 2022
2 years 8 monthsTeam Coordinator Trading Logistics IT (Interim Management), Agile Coach
Vattenfall Energy Trading
- Led an interdisciplinary, distributed, international IT team responsible for various mission-critical applications for energy trading and market access (e.g., exchanges, capacity platforms and grid operators) – for commercial transactions and physical delivery, for balancing energy, intraday and term trading.
- Ensured operational management of highly critical 24/7 applications and further development of the applications. Coordinated projects to transform and renew the existing software and IT landscape in trading logistics IT and ETRM.
- Developed strategies and concepts to consolidate and modernize IT and system landscapes. Planned and executed cloud migration projects (on-premise to Microsoft Azure). Adapted existing applications for cloud operation. Introduced automated release and deployment processes (CI/CD).
- Coordinated the creation of security and access concepts and the execution and evaluation of security audits and penetration tests.
- Stakeholder and requirements management.
- Supported resource and budget management.
- Fostered a collaborative team culture, conflict management, self-organization and team development. Coaching and mentoring in agile methods (Scrum/Kanban).
- Developed a target vision and strategy for renewing the existing IT landscape in trading logistics IT and ETRM.
- Migrated multiple enterprise applications to the Azure Cloud.
- Evolved the team from mainly operational tasks toward software development.
- Introduced agile work methods and Scrum.
- Increased self-organization/self-management.
May 2019 - Nov 2019
7 monthsSabbatical
- Roadtrip through Europe
May 2018 - May 2019
1 year 1 monthTeam Coordinator and Operations Management (Interim Management)
Vattenfall Energy Trading
- Led an IT team of 5 members.
- Ensured operational management and support for industry-specific, mission-critical 24/7 applications.
- Knowledge management and competency building (e.g., shared use of tools like Confluence, internal training). Applied agile and DevOps practices (e.g., pair programming and reviews, continuous integration/delivery).
- Coordinated ongoing application enhancements to meet new market, compliance, regulatory and business requirements.
- Requirements management; interface between business units and development team; prioritization of tasks in coordination with stakeholders.
- Budget and resource management.
May 2011 - May 2018
7 years 1 monthBusiness Analyst, Solution Architect and IT Project Manager in Various Projects
Vattenfall Energy Trading
- For several mission-critical projects in the areas of:
- Implementation of third-party application systems including scheduling and nomination in the power sector (market access)
- Further development of in-house application software
- IT infrastructure and datacenter projects
- Carve-in and carve-out projects
- Captured and modeled existing processes and identified optimization potentials. Conducted interviews and workshops with business units and newly integrated business entities (carve-in).
- Prepared and documented requirements. Translated business requirements into technical specifications. Assessed various solution architectures. Performed cost-benefit analyses considering regulatory and business requirements. Prepared decision proposals and coordinated decision processes.
- Planned, managed and controlled projects using classical project management methods. Stakeholder management at various levels (business units, external service providers, management). Risk and dependency management, reporting and project governance.
- Coordinated test management and quality assurance (e.g., acceptance and go-live processes).
- Successfully implemented a mission-critical energy trading system in a very challenging stakeholder and vendor environment.
- Timely integration of a business unit into the existing IT application landscape, including functional enhancements for new processes.
- Established processes, communication structures and documentation for collaboration between internal customers, application support and data center for a virtualization solution.
Jan 2009 - Dec 2011
2 yearsIT Subproject Manager / Consultant
Raffinerie Heide GmbH
- Supported the corporate transition and carving out the corporate IT from the previous owner’s group (carve-out).
- Identified and documented relevant and affected business processes and applications. Developed and executed strategies to decouple processes and applications.
- Defined tasks and work packages for process and system owners to separate processes and applications from the old organization.
- Planned, managed and controlled implementation. Coordinated and reported to the program manager and steering committees.
Jan 2009 - Dec 2010
2 yearsIT Project Manager
Yxlon International
- Established and stabilized a new software development team (carve-in).
- Ensured rapid knowledge transfer and documentation as most members of the old team left the company at short notice. Simultaneously built a new team at the new location and fostered knowledge and competency development.
- Coordinated the evolution of the application using Scrum.
- Introduced agile development methods and Scrum, coaching and mentoring in agile methods. Integrated and managed an external vendor as an extended workbench.
- Captured business requirements and managed epics. Translated business requirements into technical specifications and test cases.
- Prepared documentation and supported the acceptance process for new software versions and handover to operations.
- Introduced and provided training for the new software version across the company for all markets (Europe, USA, Asia).
- Built and stabilized the development team at the new location.
- Ensured knowledge transfer for operations and further system development.
- Developed a new software version of the system application within 6 months in parallel with building the structures, with market-relevant new features and under challenging conditions. Increased product and company competitiveness through the new software features.
Jan 2007 - Dec 2009
3 yearsSoftware Architect
Shell
- Developed a software architecture for the redevelopment of a globally deployed enterprise application.
- Defined guidelines and development patterns for object-oriented development in C#/.NET.
- Considered SOX and IT compliance requirements. Developed a security framework and user authentication including user concept.
- Led a development team of 20 developers.
- Provided documentation and conducted training for users and support. Prepared materials and facilitated the transition-to-support process (handover from development to operations).
Jan 2004 - Dec 2006
2 yearsSoftware Architect and Team Lead
Speech Design Carrier Systems GmbH
- Analyzed existing technologies.
- Evaluated various architectural approaches (e.g., agent-based architecture and SOA).
- Designed architecture for the application.
- Implemented the main SOA components (e.g., enterprise service bus based on MS MessageQueue; event dispatcher for load, resource and task-based distribution; high-availability and system monitoring services; TCP-based communication between distributed components; interface definitions for the services, etc.).
- Architecture and design supervision and coaching of developers, software reviews.
- Conducted vulnerability analysis of the existing software system with a view to new application requirements and created an architecture concept for a freely scalable and highly available telecommunications application.
- Rapidly built a development team for the new application, coached and successfully introduced new development methods (object-oriented programming), programming language (C#/.NET) and technologies (Microsoft .NET 1.1 technology stack).
Summary
I understand IT transformation as a holistic approach that covers general aspects such as processes, methods, technologies and architectures. These are complemented by company- and business-specific topics. It is the combination of strong business acumen, comprehensive technical knowledge and experience in team development and leadership that I apply to successfully implement IT projects. The foundation is many years of deep experience as a software developer and software architect in various technologically demanding and highly mission-critical projects. In recent years, I have worked as a business analyst, solution architect, project manager, agile coach and interim manager in numerous IT transformation projects for leading European companies in the energy, telecommunications and industrial sectors.
Languages
German
Native
English
Advanced
Certifications & licenses
Certified Project Manager according to IPMA Level C
IPMA
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