What’s it like to become a Scrum Master and work at MEQIFY? In our ‘Meet’ series, we learn more about working with MEQIFY by meeting the people that are tirelessly supporting our customers to improve themselves and are brimming with experience to share.
Harald is one of our newest colleagues in Meqify, joining in late 2022 just in time for a team trip to Copenhagen. His current assignment is with Tetra Pak as a Scrum Master.
Some 20 years ago, when working on a Content Management System solution in France. The French Ministry of Culture was making a call for a project to help cultural institutions and artists to share and preserve their artistic work. The Ministry launched several initiatives in parallel. They wanted to increase their chances for success and create a bit of competition between participants as well.
“There were so many variables and stakeholders in the project that we realised quickly that the risk to get stuck in planning and conceptualising was real and very high. As a cross-functional team of 4 people, we somehow came up with the idea, to work in blocks of one or two weeks. It allowed us to test and evaluate rapidly. We just did what felt like the right choice at the time. We didn’t care so much about how it was called.”
Harald’s journey to where he is today is fascinating and varied, demonstrating how many paths can lead to a career coaching others. For Harald, the main ingredient is to “genuinely care about people” and to work on yourself.
In all the different aspects of his career journey, Harald really emphasises the need to appreciate the power of a team. It’s important not to fall into a trap of a “Disneyland team” – there will always be things to work out but “it’s a mindset” to learn to respect one another. And the coaching tools set can serve as an enabler to achieve that.
“Honour the potential of the team, learn to become aware of your own limitations & qualities” and look for environments where your skills are recognised and fit.
Harald likes to analyse and finds that transparency and honesty go hand in hand in making a team successful. You also “need to be transparent with yourself” to really make progress. In Agile delivery, focus is also an important, “when everything is possible, nothing gets done” so you need to hone and focus “KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid!”
This is why the Scrum Retrospective is also Harald’s favourite event; “I’m always curious what others perceived the same situations and I like to optimise things.”
Harald came across Meqify hosting the Agile Exchange Lund meetup. “I was looking to meet agile practitioners and grow my network in Sweden! And one thing led to another. What I appreciate today is working as a consultant as part of a human-sized company while delivering solutions to big company like TetraPak.”
As MEQIFY’s newest team member, Harald has joined the MEQIFest champions to organise great events for our colleagues – we’re looking forward to the next one, Harald!
“Through my work, I want to make a concrete difference – no matter how small – to somebody. Then I am happy.”
