Ing. Zuzana Sochova, MBA

Managing Director
at Lotofidea

Profile

I have over 11 years of commercial experiences in IT, beginning as a software designer/engineer and moving up into project management, program management, and into executive management at a company provides SW services for international customers (USA, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, …) that operating in mission critical and life critical sectors – i.e. air traffic control management systems, extensive healthcare applications, and public safety systems. I'm also a founder of the Agile Consortium Czech Republic offering consultancy of agile and management.

Along with that, I’m participating in conferences and events around the world. I am contributing to the Czech Technical University agile project management programs and irregularly to IT magazines about agile and project management.

MBA at Sheffield Hallam University, Master degree at Czech Technical University, Computer Science.

Contact Information

Personal Information

Education

2007-2010Sheffield Hallam University

• MBA Program
• Dissertation on 'Alternative Team Management in SW Services' focused on agile adoption process.
• April 23, 2010

1995-2001Czech Technical University, Prague

• Ing. (as MSc) at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering
• Diploma Thesis: Slices Editor
  • Solution implemented in C++ using QT library
  • Thesis defended January 20th, 2001

1991-1995SPS ST, Prague

• Telecommunications

Employment History

2001-2010CERTICON a.s.

• Positions:

  Technical & HR Director

  • Organization of all SW Development, SW Testing, HW and Consultancy services.
  • Leading cross-international projects with virtual teams. Responsible for the complete project life cycle including business development and customer relationship.
  • Introducing Agile and SCRUM practices, adjustments to the company culture, special focus on osmotic communication and team culture improvements.
  • Creating company HR strategy

  Program Manager Sr./Key Account Manager

  • More than 4 years of account/program management role, created strong relationship with customer (Medtronic US, Vitatron NL, Perceptive Software US, Teradyne GER). Set up an effective communication, was able to adjust team to cultural differences.
  • Responsible for department group of 30+ engineers, workforce planning & staffing, performance management, employee development & training, employee relations.
  • Leading cross-international projects with virtual teams. Responsible for the complete project life cycle including business development and customer relationship.
  • Introducing Agile and SCRUM practices, adjustments to the company culture, coaching technical leads and sub-project leads.
  • Recruiting and training new employees.

  Project Manager

  • More than 6 years of project management role, startup projects in technically difficult environment, huge architectures, getting domain knowledge into the team fast.
  • Project lead, team of 20 - 30 engineers, customer relationship and business development, workforce planning & staffing.
  • New methodologies (Agile process, Extreme Programming, SCRUM Crystal Clear, Lean processes).
  • Project plans (MS Project, Concerto, Burndowns), Critical Chain and Risk Management.

  SW Designer

  • Architecture design, requirements and specification in technically difficult environment and huge architectures. Software for medical systems/devices in qualified environment.
• Address: Vaclavska 12, 120 00 Prague 2, Czech Republic
  Tel: +420-2-24904203

1999-2000S.W.L., spol. s.r.o.

• Position: Software Designer
• Address: Metujska 907, 198 00 Prague 9, Czech Republic

1994-19962N TELEKOMUNIKACE a.s.

• SW Tester (part-time job)
• Address: Modřanská 621, 143 01 Prague 4, Czech Republic

Specific Accomplishments

• Leading of internal project audits, processes analyses and improvements.
• Experiences with international environment, 7 month stay at Medtronic Corporation, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Cooperation with a number of foreign customers on daily basis (based in The Netherlands, USA, Germany).
• Consultancy on Agile Methods for different company environments.
• Invited lecture at DCSE CTU (CVUT FEL), Prague (Software Project Management, Project Management).
• Invited lecture at MFF UK, Prague (Project Management).
• Publications at IT professional magazines on Agile and Scrum methods (Business World, ICT revue).
• Paper on Methodologies and Tools for Management for Centre for Applied Cybernetics.
• Founder of Czech Agile Consortium.
• Organizing Agile workshops and Agilia open meetings.

Conferences

• Invited talk at WebExpo 2008 conference, Prague (Agile and Scrum Methods).
• Participating at WebExpo 2009 WebExpo 2009 conference, Prague (Open space discussion)
• Invited talk at Agile Eastern Europe Conference 2009, Kiev, Ukraine (Extreme Scrum)
• Paper on Agile and Scrum at the 8th International Conference on Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, SoMeT 2009, Prague (Software Development Methodology for Fast Changing Environment).
• Invited talk at Agile Central Europe Conference 2010, Krakow, Poland (Company Culture as the Key Agile Milestone)
• Paper on Agile adoption process at the 9th International Conference on Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, SoMeT 2010, Yokohama, Japan (Hidden Gap in Agile Methods Adoption).
• Organizing Agile and Management Hall at WebExpo 2010 WebExpo 2010 conference, Prague.

Professional Interests

• Change management, strategy and processes
• Agile and Scrum, TPS
• Human resource management

Other Experiences

• Practical experiences with virtual teams management
• ISO 9001:2000 processes knowledge
• Agile and SCRUM software development methodologies
• People management, evaluations, promotions, recruiting
• Processes for development of medical devices knowledge
• Wide experiences with IT outsourcing
• Programming (problem analysis and algorithm design)
• Databases, data mining, computer graphics

Technical Experiences

• C++, C, Java, PHP, Perl
• Windows 95/NT/2K/XP, Linux/UNIX, OS/2
• STL, MFC, SQL, HTML, XHTML, XML, .NET, J2EE
• Dev. Environment - Visual Studio .NET, IBM Visual C++, Borland
• Proficiency in MS Project
• Configuration management under Synergy, CVS, Subversion, MS Team Foundation

Languages

• Czech - native language
• English - excellent skills (reading, writing, verbal)
• French - basic skills
• Bahasa Indonesia - basic skills

Other

• More than 58 weeks spent in developing countries - Asia, Africa
• Ability to adapt to cultural differences

Hobbies

• Photography, traveling, diving, bird-watching, snowboarding