Roman Šmiřák
Co-founder of RainFellows
I started my IT career 20 years ago as a Java developer and later as a Project Manager. Due to successful global deliveries, we started our team of Agile Coaches in 2006 to pass on successful (Agile) practices to other teams. In 2010 – 2013 I was part of the Scandinavian IT Cluster where people from different companies and academics exchanged experience on how to scale Agile in corporations.
In 2013 we started our own consulting company, which is no longer focused on IT only. Later we co-founded or invested in start-ups. We also co-founded several products on the Red Button platform, such as Red Button EDU, where I host the Agile Talks show.
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Agile transformation in NGO Učitel naživo (Teacher Live)
The non-profit organization Teacher Live (Učitel naživo) has a worthy mission – its goal is to improve the quality of Czech education for our children through the support and improvement of the preparation of future teachers and the development of school principals. It wants to achieve systemic change, which means not only helping specific teachers and principals, but also working with the system and changing legislation. The organization is made up of about 40-50 heartfelt members. The governance of the organization looked like that the entire team came together at an offsite meeting in August and created a plan for the next school year. But by September, the reality was very different. For example – when a key person is replaced several times a year – the Minister of Education. We were always able to adapt quickly, but we rarely abandoned our original intentions and the snowballing became untenable after a while. That’s why two years ago the management decided to switch to Agile management. In this talk, Martin Kozel (co-founder and CEO of Učitel naživo) and Roman Šmiřák (co-founder of RainFellows) will share how they approached Agility in this unusual nonprofit environment, what it has brought, and how people in the organization evaluate Agility two years later.
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