Agile Consultant: a job with human connection
At Equalminds, talent and commitment are always crucial. It might happen that a graduated criminologist is working there as an Agile Consultant. “My role is to bring people with the right profiles together and make them collaborate. Subsequently, they opt for the technology path themselves.” Meet Nicolas, Agile Consultant: a job with human connection!
Companies rely on Equalminds for Agile Coaching and Agile Consultancy. Equalminds’ agile approach aims to make business and IT work together more efficiently. That way, they obtain more flexibility and – ultimately – more added value. In 2019, Nicolas De Greef started working as an Agile Consultant at Equalminds. “I don’t have a classic IT background, because I studied political science and criminology”, says Nicolas. “And I ended up in project work, more or less by coincidence. I got in touch with Equalminds and there was an immediate connection. With regard to the content, the company, and the people.”
Equalminds fully invests in its employees. “My first working week already consisted of training,” says Nicolas. “And that doesn’t stop. At the moment, I’m following a Lean 6Sigma training. Equalminds sees its employees as its main assets. It’s about the human connection; not about the degrees people have. And that’s what promptly appealed to me: being able to contribute to the growth of a company while learning a lot myself.”
Agile and yet pragmatic
Nicolas has been working for Equalminds on several projects at the Agentschap Uitbetaling Groeipakket and on the project Mijn Burgerprofiel at the Flemish government. He already knew the Agile method from a previous assignment. At the same time, he’s convinced that this method is no more than it means. “I’m not very educated,” he says while laughing. “It’s much more important to have an Agile attitude yourself. The goal always consists of finding efficient solutions. However, it is often easier when not too many dogmatic principles are involved. I see myself as a pragmatist in function of the objective, the process, and – above all – the people.”
A good Agile Scrum Master feels great with teamwork. “Taking everyone on board and making different people collaborate; those are the challenges that appeal to me. I like doing different things at the same time and switching quickly from one assignment to another. I often work on different projects at the same time; sometimes even for different clients. I often end up in mixed teams, in which we create great things together with both internal employees and external experts. This way, I work in very different environments, which makes my job very exciting and diverse.”
Remote teamwork
A small detail: Nicolas has never met his colleagues from the current project teams face to face. “Telework is also the rule for us,” he explains. “Every day, we do a video stand-up. We also do other meetings remotely. I like that way of working. I don’t really miss the traffic jams to Brussels.” Of course, there will be a time when Nicolas and his colleagues will have to go to the office more often. “However, for many of our tasks, this is certainly not a must,” he says. “In the IT sector, remote collaboration has already been popular for a long time, both offshore and nearshore. We will continue to do so in the future. Since we are not stuck to a physical location, it only offers us extra flexibility.”
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