Who are you Josef, what do you primarily do and what is your goal in life?

I am a person who enjoys creating systems that work. I like to create new things and my main drive is professional and personal growth and continuous learning and improvement. I like openness and trust, so I try to build relationships based on them. I have been trying new things in different industries for the past 10 years and enjoy the challenges it brings and the satisfaction that comes when something is successful.

This year’s theme is Tips & Tricks; what are the main ideas you want to talk about?

Success in innovation is about people. Methodologies, data, hard skills, tools, money or anything else is not nearly as important. That is why my secret trick is “focus on people right from the start”.

How do you personally imagine a person whom you would call an Experienced Professional in a field, who shows some true skill?

He or she can lead others to a result that I am happy with. No matter what the assignment, scope, budget or anything else was.

Who are you, Lucie, what do you primarily do and what is your goal in life?

I am a “child” of Linet. A person who has moved up her career path in this dynamic company, and I am proud of it.  I started working at Linet as an Assistant Quality Manager, working my way through a number of areas – Quality, Regulatory, Project Management. I capitalized on the experience I gained from these areas while managing a project in China. China was and still is a significant life and work experience for me. I am currently working as Head of Project and Regulatory. I enjoy communicating with and motivating people, finding new ways, and generally enjoy challenges and the joy of achieving results together with my great team.

My goal is to develop my team and myself, learn from mistakes, and take pride in what I do in my life both professionally and personally. The following idea is my motto: There is no beaten path from the earth to the stars.

This year’s theme is Tips & Tricks; what are the main ideas you will want to talk about?

Changing a person’s mindset – from the perspective of a manager who, with a company-wide team and a great effort, has proudly “built” project management based on solid rules and order = the waterfall principle. My conviction of its correctness and functionality.  In terms of my own conviction that there is no other better way and, thus, disseminated the approach throughout the entire company and built teamwork in this spirit.  The “boom” blow: The entry of an external consultant who was to be my main partner and bring a new way of managing projects based on the Agile principle, bringing about a rapid change. I face a big challenge:

1. Step 1 – “Getting on with it”, self-motivation.
2. Step 2 – Communicating the change to the team correctly, having them buy in to the change.
3. Step 3 – Build a partnership with the external consultant
4. Step 4 – Successfully deliver a major project together (in a given/limited time, new product type, jointly create a new project methodology and deliver the project according to it, all that with active support from a properly motivated team)

Changing the project culture – what it takes to do this, what were the hardships and obstacles we had to overcome, the lessons learned and how it worked.

How do you personally imagine a person whom you would call an Experienced Professional in a field and that they show some skill?

A person who has an open mind, knows how to learn from past mistakes, adapts to the situation at hand and leads themselves and their team towards the goal with a smile on their face.