Agile Coach at Agfa Healthcare, Enterprise Business Unit
I have worked together with Ralph on a large scale Lean & Agile transition and he is one that brings all of the skills required to help a company to be successful in Agile without neglecting the bigger picture. Ralph his patience, persistence, insight, leadership and ‘getting things done’ attitude have been key factors to the results achieved to date. I can highly recommend Ralph for companies needing expert help in applying Agile principles and creating an Agile culture.
Jurgen DeSmet, Agfa Healthcare, January 2010 – September 2011
Workshops on Agile Software Development at T-Systems
Dr. Ralph Miarka provided workshops and training on agile software development and Scrum for our team to increase our understanding of the topic. We discussed particular aspects of its applicability in our context. The workshops were well customized and targeted towards our team, project and company environment. We look forward to work with Dr. Miarka in the future again.
Frank Hoffmann, Head of Team Service Platforms & Intelligent Network at T-Systems International, July 2010 – July 2011
Scrum Consulting for cool IT
In my company we have various projects with various customers having different styles to communicate. We have one project, where the customer didn’t communicate the same way than we did. This led to various problems: We made more mistakes than necessary and we developed things the customer didn’t really want (he said afterwards). After some months, the confidence was lost. It seemed to get very hard then …
In the weeks before I talked to Ralph about this and the upcoming problems with this, I came to the decision that the traditional software development methods we were using in this project didn’t fit. I know some of the principles of Scrum and thought that this could be a good method to get this project running again. But I didn’t know the details and more important than this: I didn’t know, how to start. After two and a half hours of intensive consulting I held some checklists and a lot of details in hand, how to start. The next day I started – and yes, it was much work to change the things! – but it didn’t take a long time to make things better.
It took only small steps – afterwards they really seem easy - but they were very effective. Ralph really helped us to restore the confidence again. His way to communicate, his clear wording and his structured proceeding make me look forward to work with him again.
Sabine Stiller, cool-IT GmbH, February 2011
Scrum Einführung
Wir haben von Deinem Workshop so profitiert, dass uns die Scrum-Umstellung erfolgreich geglückt ist. Wir sind mehr als glücklich über die Entscheidung und machen mittlerweile die komplette Entwicklung damit.
Dr. Martin Toeltsch, Symena Software & Consulting GmbH, October 2010.
Scrum Trainer
I can say that it is most fruitful and enjoyable to work with Ralph. He took over complete modules (Scrum introduction and Sprints) and presented them in a very professional manner which was also honoured by the participant’s feedback. His conduct proved his experience as trainer as well as a person having worked in many different roles (Scrum Master, Project Manager, Coach). This also allowed him to
provide many practical examples and answer questions profoundly. After each training day, we had very open and fruitful debriefings where I got many inspirations to improve my training.
Sabine Canditt, Certified Scrum Trainer, June – August 2009
Scrum Coach, Identity and Access Managment, Siemens IT Solutions and Service, Siemens Programm- und Systementwicklung GmbH & Co. KG
I have known Dr. Ralph Miarka since November 2008 when he was contracted for a four month engagement as a Siemens-internal consultant and trainer to introduce and establish Scrum in my department.
Ralph started his engagement by preparing a careful situation assessment, reviewing the software engineering practices in the organization and interviewing key personal in development, product management and quality management. After this he provided Scrum training for two teams totaling 20 people. The participants were developers, testers, and the future Product Owners and Scrum Master. The training was very well received by all the participants and played an important role in the acceptance and further practice of the Scrum methodology in our organization.
Ralph helped to setup the Product Backlog and moderated the first estimation sessions, bringing developers, testers and Product Owners together. Ralph also moderated the first Sprint Planning meetings, the first Daily Standups and the first Review and Retrospectives. Later these meetings where moderated by our own Scrum Masters and Ralph observed and provided feedback to them afterwards. This ensured a rather fast transition to Scrum and ensured self-responsibility by the team.
I am very happy to see that after almost one year since Scrum was introduced to these two development teams the commitment to Scrum is as strong as it was at the beginning, the teams have embraced it without objections. The benefits for the organization regarding the agility and transparency of the development process and quality gain of the products are clearly visible.
We were very impressed by Ralph’s commitment to Scrum and to our project, by his enthusiasm, communication skills, broad knowledge and personal qualities. We will be happy to contract Ralph for future engagements.
Dr. Teodor Dumitrescu, Development Manager, Identity and Access Management with DirX, Siemens Programm- und Systementwicklung GmbH & Co. KG, SIS PS CNS IMB IAM, Munich, November 2008 – February 2009
Agile Coach at Nokia, Helsinki
I had the pleasure to hire Ralph as an Agile Coach in 2008 to support a software development team through a difficult transition. Ralph did an excellent job and we’ve subsequently met many times and had many fun and enjoyable discussions.
Ralph has an exceptionally deep understanding of Agile and Lean and an excellent capability to clearly communicate his knowledge. He also has a strong drive to get issues properly resolved. When he takes on a problem he will pursue it until fixed and closed.
I can strongly recommend Ralph for any task related to coaching and supporting software development teams.
Martin von Weissenberg, Agile Coach at Nokia, October 2008
Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Agile Coach at Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Vienna
Ralph Miarka was employed in my department from 01/2005 to 02/2008. In April 2006 we decided, based on an initiative by Ralph, to introduce Scrum in our department. We work in the area of embedded software development for automotive and communication devices.
Ralph was responsible for several agile projects as Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Coach. The project L6 was the first Scrum project in our organization, delivering a car infotainment system for the automotive industry. Ralph reported about our experiences with distributed teams in this project in the Cutter Journal “Exploring the Agile Frontiers” (Vol. 20, No. 5, May 2007). With the project T0x, a development for a telecommunication device, we gained very high customer satisfaction due to Scrum. Ralph managed to engage the customer closely in the product management process and to show him the advantages of the agile approach by allowing the customer to frequently add, remove, and change priorities of requirements. Further projects resulted from this good cooperation. Of course, they were also executed with Scrum.
Later, Ralph engaged more in coaching and training activities for our other teams that started to apply Scrum. He also helped our customers to become more agile by giving presentations and by coaching their team members. We are proud to say that many projects used Scrum and delivered valuable systems to our customers since.
With his excellent know-how, his personal engagement and his exceptional communication skills, Ralph played a key role in our transition to Scrum to the advantage of the members in our organization and our customers. I look forward to working with Ralph again in the future.
Kurt Mayr, Siemens IT Solutions and Services, SIS SDE IEH CD, Vice President, Communication Devices, Vienna, Austria, Februar 2008