Business Architecture
Businesses need to be architected and built like buildings. You need a purpose and a vision to know your mission, to know what you’re building. You need core values as a strong foundation for the entire organization. Then you can focus on strategy and actually build an organization that is able to execute that strategy. It is your company’s cultural web that matters when you enter the market and compete for customers. It is your team, your tools, your organizational structure, your competencies, products, policies, initiatives and their relationships that matter. Finally, you need a brand to show all of this to the world. All in the service of value delivery, that requires happy employees. To do it right, you’ll need a business architect with skill, experience and the right mindset. Scroll down to see if you’ve found it.
Agile Transformation
Agile has become a buzzword recently. To some extent, I agree with the criticism, because so many people miss how agile is done right. For starters, agile is not something you do, it is something you are. Something you can become if you are guided by someone with enough expertise and experience, combined with the right mindset. Agile is embracing a set of values and principles, such as transparency, empiricism, servant leadership, empowerment, self-organization and trust. Organizations of the 21st century need to be built around high performing agile teams. Your competition has probably started a transformation, and so should you. Agile companies are more profitable and more livable for employees, as the agile way of working brings happiness. I’m happy to be your trainer and coach in your agile transformation journey.
Core Competencies
Agile & Scrum
I’m a natural born agilist. As I discovered on my first ever training, agile has always been the natural way of things for me. Transparency, empiricism, self-organization and all the other principles are so obvious for me that learning agile and Scrum was almost effortless. No wonder agile became my passion and in 2019, my primary job. I became an agile business architect, Scrum trainer and agile coach.
IT & Software
Robots and computers were my childhood fascination. I learned programming at the age of seven and by the time I grew up, software production and IT has become my lifeblood and my career. As I started to make bigger and better software, I became a senior architect and turned from programming to managing high performing agile teams. My strong IT background helps me transform organizations in the digital world.
Marketing
Marketing is one of the most misunderstood professions. It is far more than advertising or brand management. Marketing is the art of bringing together sellers and buyers for their mutual advantage. This can only be achieved with great products or services. But even the best products need branding to stand out from the crowd. I have designed and marketed successful products, built successful brands.
About Me
I have been active in the software business for 24 years as programmer, project manager, product owner marketer and board member in my own ventures, Sense/Net and Barion. Over the years, I used agility to boost the performance of my own companies and gained significant fintech regulatory experience from Barion. I am a dedicated Agile and Scrum evangelist with hands on experience as Developer, Product Owner, Scrum Master and agile coach. I learned Scrum from Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum and Lyssa Adkins, author of renowned coaching book Coaching Agile Teams. As I started teaching and coaching people, I moved away from engineering. Finally, business architecture and agile transformation became my new passion. I have trained over 2000 people at various organizations. In 2021 I wrote Digital Readiness Framework, an open source agile business architecture framework for building successful digital organizations. To help leaders apply the framework, I founded Digital Readiness Institute.
BiroTom - alias Tamás Bíró
Education
I studied Integrated Engineering at the Nottingham Trent University. We were trained to be a multidisciplinary engineer; we learned marketing, management, finance, work study, organizational psychology as well as mechanical, electrical and software engineering. We also worked in teams, and our project team in second year was almost perfect. Now I know it was instinctual agility. This inspired me to study how to work better in teams.
My very first Scrum training sparked my enthusiasm for teaching agility. I was lucky enough to attend the training of Lyssa Adkins, whose coaching focused, human centered and inspirational training changed my life. I knew I found what I was looking for, real agility. Lyssa’s 5 agile values from her book Coaching Agile Teams was added to the Scrum Guide in 2016. This made me elaborate the agile mindset in my trainings instead of the mechanics.
After a few years of practicing and teaching Scrum, I wanted to shift gears and learn more. I decided to learn from no other than the co-creator of Scrum, founder of Scrum.org, Ken Schwaber. I took Ken’s Scrum Master and Product Owner master class to fill the gaps in my agile and Scrum knowledge. It was one of the best investments and dismantled all my doubts about the correct use of the Scrum framework.
Certifications
I hold both the Certified Scrum Master and Professional Scrum Master, and Certified Scrum Product Owner and Professional Scrum Product Owner certifications.
Other Competencies & Experience
Entrepreneurship
The intricacies of designing, launching and growing your business: from incorporation, to legal, IP, compliance, governance and financial issues. I can help to avoid early pitfalls that can hinder a later investment or pose a risk to your growth.
Standards
Many people shun documenting and formalizing processes, while I enjoy doing it. My specialty is invisible standards compliance, where compliance is hidden from employees and integrated into existing procedures. I designed and implemented a paperless ISO 9001 system that employees actually liked.
Branding
I have designed or helped design some successful brands with a methodology created by the marketing guru of Coca Cola. A brand also needs architecture and modern branding relies on psychology to guide buyers through the customer journey.
Pitching & Fundraising
I produced and delivered pitches that lead to €200k, €300k and €6 million in investment. I also have experience in reading and writing term sheets, calculating valuations and executing investment rounds, including due diligences. I also took part in acquiring a competing company.
Critical thinking
I regularly give lectures on critical thinking, reasoning, cognitive biases and the scientific method. I evangelize skepticism and research the reasons why people embrace pseudo-science.
Fintech
Having launched a successful fintech startup, I gained experience in many areas, including incorporation, licensing, legal, EU regulatory practices, compliance, security, product development and marketing. I have good working relations with the authorities and have good contacts in the industry.
Security
Information security plays a central role in the digital world. I have experience building secure facilities and IT systems that do not cause a headache for your staff and your customers. I lead the design of a risk driven security system for Barion in compliance with COBIT and fintech regulations.
Software Product Development
I played the role of marketer, sales, product manager and Scrum Product Owner for a successful software product. I was invited to speak about product development many times.
Legal & Compliance
I believe in business driven legal practices. Contracting is not the job of lawyers, their job is to assist and advise only. I have experience in international contracting, software licensing, open source software use and licensing, company structures, incorporation and investment term sheet and contracts.
Engineering
I have experience in the field of mechanical, electric and software engineering. I wrote my theses on supervisory control system (SCADA) of a museum. I also have experience in web development, CMS, ECM, document management, and fintech apps.
My Ventures
I am the co-founder of Sense/Net, an IT company focusing on enterprise content management selling their own open source platform worldwide. The company has been steadily profitable for 25 years and has been operating without the founders for the last 5 years. The founders are planning an exit.
I am the co-founder of Barion, a payment gateway and digital wallet company with a peculiar business model. I built and executed the marketing strategy that lead to a €6 million investment from billionaire Peter Kellner. International expansion is under way, and we are planning a next round of investment.
I founded Budget Scrum 10 years ago to satisfy the need for affordable Scrum training for companies large and small. I have trained over 1300 people ever since and have been supporting the Technical University of Budapest with free trainings for 5 years now. Budget Scrum offers Scrum Master and Product Owner trainings in English and Hungarian.
In 2021 I founded Digital Readiness Institute, a boutique consultancy firm, where we prepare leaders and organizations for the digital challenge and empower them through knowledge. I wrote Digital Readiness Framework, a free business architecture guide with a roadmap to building successful digital companies.
My References
Pro Bono
I deliver free lectures at the Technical University of Budapest.
