Hello Walter! What’s your job at Arineo?
I am a senior project manager at Arineo Austria GmbH and my office is in Vienna. I don’t have just the one job; I can work in several areas. First and foremost, I am a senior project manager, then I work in sales and key-account support. Together with two colleagues, I am a JIRA admin and a member of the Application Management Service Processes & Government. During my 35-year career, I have never had this variety of tasks and opportunities to contribute to and shape the company.
What exactly does your job entail?
I am currently working for a Swiss client in the pharmaceutical sector. There, I am managing a LIMS implementation project on the client’s side on an interim basis. As this project will be continued by a new employee in January, I will implement a PMO there as my next task. At the same time, I am still managing a project to transfer applications in a telecommunications company that was sold from Switzerland to Austria. Negotiations are underway for the Swiss company (the seller) to replace its AX2012 application with D365 and integrate it into the group. Furthermore, the prospective buyer would like to have all of their applications supported by our AMS. Here, I work out the details of this complex project with the client and, together with the solution architect, process improvements.
In JIRA, we adapted our processes to ITIL and I implemented the workflow changes. We are in the final testing stages there and will soon be converting the first projects.
At Arineo, we adhere to 15 values. Which of these values is especially important to you?
It is not easy to name just one value. Because all these values are what WE are. Having satisfied customers is important, but so is profitability. For me, the point ‘open, honest and authentic’ is very important.
Can you tell us why you chose this value?
If I know that my counterpart is open and honest, conversation and argumentation are also based on trust. This is the only way a long-term cooperation can succeed. I live these values and I also expect them in any partnership. However, I have already seen companies that do not get along with our philosophy and business organisation.
How do you live by these values?
Openness, honesty and authenticity – it is not always easy to live these values. It is a question of how honesty is communicated. Being open is not a problem for me; there are only a few topics that I exclude. These are, for example, prejudices based on narrow-mindedness. It could well be that I openly express my opinion. Life has taught me to be who you are, without pretence. You can’t keep up the act for long and end up disappointing those around you.
Can you give us specific examples of how these values show up in your day-to-day work?
I am open about my values in sales talks and projects. I state how I work and what I expect. That sounds like scare tactics; of course, I do it with appropriate words – especially during external discussions. So far, this has worked well for me.
When colleagues and clients make requests, I sometimes openly say “no” or “later”. I also explain why. So it is clear that, at that moment, other tasks have a higher priority. But with our tools and self-organisation, these tasks are not forgotten, they go into the backlog. Thus, I also live by Arineo’s agile approach for my tasks.
