Ondřej manages an online supermarket Rohlik.cz from the IT perspective, dealing not only with the availability for demanding customers but also ensuring the smooth running of internal systems such as warehousing and logistics. One of the facts that surprised us about Ondra is that he used to teach in high school. :)
Ondra, can you describe yourself in terms of your professional role?
I am the CTO of Rohlik.cz. In Rohlík, we are building a Western European company model that is about to conquer Europe. I primarily build the IT department and connect it with business (for example by introducing the agile approach) – all of it “in scale”. (I have been working for Rohlík since the beginning of 2016 when the IT department had 10 employees. The current number is almost 130.)
The theme of the 13th year of the Conference is “Tips & Tricks”. What are the main ideas you will want to talk about?
Fails and tips for agile transformations.
How would you describe a person marked as Experienced Professional or working with know-how and skill?
Such a person is simply knowledgeable. This is most noticeable when making decisions and setting strategies. An experienced professional does things utilising mostly their experience and intuition.
At the beginning, Rohlik.cz was de facto an agile company – the founder Tomáš was a Product Owner with a clear vision, the team was motivated to realize his vision. As Rohlík grew, we needed to organize the inner chaos and punk style into an efficient system. We chose the path of a project organization managed by PMO. But after half a year, we realised that this method was slowing us down and paralyzing us in a bureaucratic trap. We chose agility as the optimum between punk and the rigidity of classic PM. In this lecture, we want to openly share the fails and tips of our agile transformation.