Stefan Simrock - Sabbatical

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Hamburg, Germany

Experience

Aug 2024 - Dec 2024

5 months

Sabbatical

Sep 2023 - Jul 2024

11 months

Overall Project Manager for IT Project

Uniper

Overall leadership 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 meant to replace an existing legacy application and support highly critical 24/7 business processes.
Joined the ongoing project during a crisis. Developed a long-term strategy and realigned the project. Planned, managed, and controlled project tasks.
Optimized the project organization with more than 20 members and focused the project on achieving agreed goals. Classic project management combined with agile methods (backlog, daily stand-ups, etc.).
Project planning and control and introduction of dependency and risk management. Defined and agreed on measurable project goals between customer and vendor. Continuous monitoring of project progress and reporting to the steering committee and top-level management.
Stakeholder management and vendor control: coordination and communication in a demanding stakeholder and vendor environment. Improved communication structures. Increased transparency and measurability of results.

Apr 2023 - Aug 2023

5 months

IT Project Manager

Deutsche Giganetz

Led an IT project as part of a strategic company initiative for fiber expansion and marketing.
Requirements management: gathered business requirements from sales and commercial areas as well as technical construction. Conducted requirements workshops with business units.
Created an IT strategy and coordinated the development of a solution design based on business requirements.
Aligned with stakeholders, business units, and IT departments.
Project planning and control; project reporting to the project office.

Jul 2022 - Feb 2025

2 years 8 months

Agile Coach

Supported the implementation of agile ways of working and agile transformation, especially around the agile product and the product owner role:
Stakeholder mapping and communication
Backlog setup and management
Conducting team vision & strategy workshops
Realigning the product portfolio
Methods and tools for roadmap management
Applying design thinking methods
Working with agile metrics (velocity, burndown)
Using 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 months

Team Coordinator Trading Logistics IT (Interim Management), Agile Coach

Vattenfall Energy Trading

Led an interdisciplinary, distributed, international IT team responsible for various business-critical applications for energy trading and market access (including exchanges, capacity platforms, and grid operators) covering commercial trading and physical delivery, balancing power, intraday, and term trading.
Ensured operational support of highly critical 24/7 applications and further development of those 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 conducted and evaluated security audits and penetration tests.
Stakeholder management and requirements management;
Supported resource and budget management.
Fostered a collaborative team culture, conflict management, self-organization, and team development. Coached and mentored in agile methods (Scrum/Kanban).
Defined target vision and strategy for renewing the IT landscape in trading logistics IT and ETRM.
Migrated multiple business applications to the Azure cloud.
Evolved the team from mainly operational tasks to software development.
Introduced agile work methods and Scrum.
Increased self-organization/self-management.

May 2019 - Nov 2019

7 months

Sabbatical

Road trip through Europe

May 2018 - May 2019

1 year 1 month

Team Coordinator and Operational Management (Interim Management)

Vattenfall Energy Trading

Led an IT team of five members.
Ensured operational support and maintenance of industry-specific, business-critical 24/7 applications.
Knowledge management and skill building (e.g., shared tools like Confluence, internal training). Used agile and DevOps practices (e.g., pair programming and code reviews, continuous integration/delivery).
Coordinated continuous application development according to new market, compliance, regulatory, and other business requirements.
Requirements management; acted as interface between business units and development team; prioritized tasks in consultation with stakeholders.
Managed budget and resources.

May 2011 - May 2018

7 years 1 month

Business Analyst, Solution Architect, and IT Project Manager in Various Projects

Vattenfall Energy Trading

For multiple business-critical projects in areas including:
Introduction of third-party application systems, e.g., for scheduling and nomination in power market access.
Further development of in-house application software.
IT infrastructure and data center projects.
Carve-in and carve-out projects.
Mapped and modeled existing processes and identified optimization potential. Conducted interviews and workshops with business units and new business entities to be integrated (carve-in).
Prepared and documented requirements. Translated business requirements into technical specifications. Assessed various solution architectures. Conducted cost-benefit analyses including regulatory and business considerations. Created decision templates and coordinated decision processes.
Planned, managed, and controlled projects using classical project management methods. Managed stakeholders at various levels (business units, external vendors, management). Handled risk and dependency management, reporting, and project governance.
Coordinated test management and quality assurance (e.g., acceptance and go-live processes).
Successfully implemented a business-critical system for energy trading in a challenging stakeholder and vendor environment.
Integrated a business unit into the existing IT application landscape on schedule, including functional extensions for new processes.
Established processes, communication structures, and documentation for collaboration between internal customers, application support, and the data center for a virtualization solution.

Jan 2010 - Dec 2011

2 years

IT Sub-Project Manager / Consultant

Raffinerie Heide GmbH

Supported the company transition and separated the corporate IT from the parent company context (carve-out).
Identified and documented relevant business processes and applications affected. Developed and implemented 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 the implementation. Coordinated and reported to the program manager and steering committees.

Jan 2009 - Dec 2010

2 years

IT Project Manager

Yxlon International

Built and stabilized a new software development team (carve-in).
Ensured rapid knowledge transfer and documentation because most of the old team members left the company at short notice. Simultaneously built a new team at the new location and developed knowledge and skills.
Coordinated application development using Scrum.
Introduced agile development methods and Scrum, coached and mentored in agile practices. Integrated and managed an external vendor as an extended team.
Collected business requirements and managed epics. Translated business requirements into technical specifications and test cases.
Created documentation and supported the acceptance process for new software versions and handover to operations.
Led training on the new software version across the company for all markets (Europe, USA, Asia).
Built and stabilized the development team at the new site.
Ensured knowledge transfer for operations and future development of the systems.
Developed a new software version of the system application within six months alongside building structures, with market-relevant new features and under challenging conditions. Improved product and company competitiveness with the new software features.

Jan 2007 - Dec 2009

3 years

Software Architect

Shell

Developed a software architecture for the new global enterprise application.
Defined guidelines and development patterns for object-oriented development in C#/.NET.
Met SOX and IT compliance requirements. Developed a security framework and user authentication, including a user concept.
Led a development team of 20 engineers.
Provided documentation and conducted training for users and support. Prepared materials and managed the transition-to-support process (handover from development to operations).

Jan 2005 - Dec 2006

2 years

Software Architect and Team Lead

Speech Design Carrier Systems GmbH

Analyzed existing technologies.
Evaluated different architecture approaches (e.g., agent-based architecture and SOA).
Designed the application architecture.
Implemented the main SOA components (e.g., enterprise service bus based on MS MessageQueue; event dispatcher for load-, resource-, and task-dependent distribution; high availability and system monitoring services; TCP-based communication between distributed components; defined service interfaces).
Supervised architecture and design and coached developers, conducted software reviews.
Analyzed weaknesses of the existing software system against new requirements and created an architecture concept for a freely scalable and highly available telecommunications application.
Quickly built a development team for the new application, coached them, and successfully introduced them to new development methods (object-oriented programming), language (C#/.NET), and technologies (Microsoft .NET 1.1 stack).

Summary

I see IT transformation as a holistic approach covering general aspects like processes, methods, technologies, and architectures. These are complemented by company- and business-specific topics. It’s the combination of strong business understanding, broad technical knowledge, and experience in team development and leadership that I bring to successfully implement IT projects.

My background comes from many years of deep experience as a software developer and software architect in various technologically demanding and highly business-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