The professional and disciplinary leadership of employees is one of the most challenging tasks of all. Interdisciplinary teams with different professional and technical know-how as well as differing interests are particularly challenging. In such cases it is intrinsically important to develop empathy and to keep the project goal in focus.

Primarily, it is all about people management. Listen, understand, act.

I have been able to experience professional and disciplinary management tasks in a variety of projects:

• professional and disciplinary leadership as a functional manager from up to 60 employees in two locations
• project management in the insurance industry with an IT expenditure of up to 5,000 person-days
• coordination of departmental tests with up to 30 employees
• technical management of a software development team of up to 20 developers
• SAP projects for regulatory reporting of one of the largest banks in Germany

The challenge of concept design is the application of a terminology in accordance with the particular
departments and the IT and in the precision and clarity of standards. A common project language and the consistent use of mutually agreed standards and norms facilitate cooperation and significantly reduce duplication of work and subsequent changes. There must always be a focus on the profitability and the appropriateness in the determination of solutions.

It has always proven useful to me, in the analysis and concept development, to have a wide knowledge of the professional and technical disciplines. Extensive knowledge of the products and the business processes of an insurance company complete the picture when designing a concept.

I have carried into effect a concept in almost every project I have supported e.g. the following results were achieved:

• business concepts
• requirements specification
• IT concepts
• test concepts
• organization manual

A professionalization of quality management is particularly important.

The requirements, which result from different challenges for a quality management software, have changed in content and emphasis. IT architecture, the development cycles of commercial or self-developed software, and the medium-term requirements management will gradually be brought into compliance with IT governance and IT compliance.

In my project assignments it has proven to be imperative that at the operational level the expertise of the IT consumer in the design and planning of quality assurance measures be implemented at an early stage. Overlapping business processes were taken into account. The advantage of this approach was the conquest of the existing organizational and technical limitations of most heterogeneous application landscapes.

In this area I carried out the following activities:

• test management and test coordination
• test conception
• test planning
• introduction to test methods
• test case finding
• test case documentation
• test case execution
• management of change requests
• bug tracking
• acceptance processes

It is crucial for the success of a software evaluation to establish a comprehensive market overview, the application of appropriate selection process and the definition of realistic expectations of a new system. As an initial step, it may be useful to define what standard software needs to provide and which customized components should be supplemented.

The approach to software evaluation, regardless of the object under examination, is comparable. After a process and requirements analysis, the market supply is checked. A pre-selection of suppliers based on specific criteria is reduced to a final selection. The detailed review of the remaining tenders follows the preparation of a submission to facilitate the decision-making process.

So far I have been able to support some software evaluation projects:

• ICR software for automatic processing for health insurers
• software for a reinsurance for an in-company reinsurance
• commission systems within the frame of a market study

It is crucial for the success of a software evaluation to establish a comprehensive market overview, the application of appropriate selection process and the definition of realistic expectations of a new system. As an initial step, it may be useful to define what standard software needs to provide and which customized components should be supplemented.

The approach to software evaluation, regardless of the object under examination, is comparable. After a process and requirements analysis, the market supply is checked. A pre-selection of suppliers based on specific criteria is reduced to a final selection. The detailed review of the remaining tenders follows the preparation of a submission to facilitate the decision-making process.

So far I have been able to support some software evaluation projects:

• ICR software for automatic processing for health insurers
• software for a reinsurance for an in-company reinsurance
• commission systems within the frame of a market study