Personal overview

I was born 1974 in Germany, moved with my lovely wife Melanie to New Zealand after she finished her PHD in 2005 and ended up in Perth, Australia. I am into sports and healthy living but I am not taking myself to serious with that. I love golf, though I am terrible and my favourite sport would be MMA and boxing (sparring only with helmet as I really need my brain).

I have two wonderful kids that I absolutely adore. My son Ben is born in 2007 and has a decent punch already. My daughter Sarah joined us in 2010 and you would not believe how much she can eat. I am a family man and I love spending time out in the parks and at the beach with our dog Mocha. I am also into fishing, tennis and snorkeling.

All at all I lead a pretty active life-style. I also love my work. I am constantly educating and developing myself further and I am always thriving to be the best I can be in any given topic. A good example for this are my poker skills. Some day I decided to learn about poker. I must have read about two dozen books and really got into it. The effect of this is that every time I wanted a toy which my wife wouldn’t allow me to buy, I called up my friends for a nice game and made the money for it… how handy is that?! Well, some say that a lot of people in my poker round where quite happy when I left New Zealand J.

I am passionate about the things I do and I work hard to produce the best result I can. That is just who I am and people seem to respond to that in a very positive way as I seem to have the gift of inspiring others.

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Professional overview

I am an experienced and accomplished project leader in the IT industry with more than 13 years of experience in complex corporate ventures and project rescues.

Core Statement

Supplying sustainable, high-end corporate IT solutions with focus on quality and added value using a motivated and scalable network of senior developers while reducing cost by cutting overhead.

• Sustainable: Focus on what the business really needs
• High-End: Projects with high value for the business and high monetary potential for us
• Quality: Perfect compliance to specification without unnecessary gold plating
• Added value: If something doesn’t add value we will not do it
• Motivated: Convenient work. Fair Compensation. Pride in the team.
• Scalable: Development process driven scalability by using work packages
• Senior: Every individual is an expert
• Reducing cost: No waste for management layers

The story

I have more than a decade of project management and leadership experience in the IT industry and also took part in ventures in the transport- and the construction industry. Working in both the corporate environment and managing my own company has given me a 360 degree insight into all facets of project management and system development. I spent most time using lightweight agile PM to manage development teams and external suppliers for international stakeholders. I came across many technologies, mainly open source and my background as system developer enable me to effectively manage projects of all degrees of complexity and size.

I have a very flexible and people focused approach to management: Whatever gets the job done! I have a deep understanding of the project management framework (PMBOK) and I am able to adapt to the existing environment. I also bring technical expertise and a lot of common sense to the table. But aside of that I learned that whatever one attempt, the most important thing is to get the right people on the bus. I have a lot of great contacts in the IT industry from consultants to developers which I love to bring into the project if it makes sense.

I focus on team work, a positive attitude and transparency. I enjoy leading by vision and collaboration. I use open channels and clear communication to create solid relationships.

The most important thing for me is quality. I will always get the best people I can get and deliver a result that is as close to perfect as it makes sense within the given constraints. I will reject projects when I believe that I wont be able to deliver a top quality result with the other project constraints in pace (time and money).

Achievements
• Created the world’s largest Drupal 7 implementation
• Successful project rescue and launch of a multi million dollar ERP system
• 80% of my contracts where generated by returning customers
• PMP and PRINCE2 Practitioner accreditation
• Involved in the IT industry for more than 13 years and always kept on top of the technology
• Worked out a great development process providing scalability and quality
• Created a worldwide network of top senior software developers

Key skills
• Getting things done (seriously)
• Communication and theory-Y leadership
• Full lifecycle project management
• Procurement of top talent world wide
• Entrepreneurial background (built successful IT agency)
• Deep understanding of IT systems and business processes
• Experience in large corporate developments

Professional Interests
• Leadership: Helping businesses to function better
• Teamwork: Alignment of team members and corporate goals
• Governance: Giving the right tools to the right people
• IT consulting: Project rescue and multi platform systems

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Please contact me for suggestions, questions or just to connect to a fellow project manager. I am always happy to share ideas and get into discussions.

Please email to mail@michaelzwiener.com.

You can also check me out on LinkedIn under http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelzwiener. Feel free to invite me to your contacts if you think that might be interesting for both of us.

Cheers
Michael