01 / Conflict in projects
Mediation and sparring for leaders in IT, digitalisation and transformation projects. I moderate the conflicts that have stopped moving, or I work with you so that you can lead the conversation yourself.
Eskalationslotse. German for the harbour pilot who guides a ship safely through difficult waters, then leaves the bridge again.
For projects where the business side and the technical side have to deliver together. Manufacturing, industry, production, software.
Trained mediator, focus on commercial mediation · Mediator, Harmony Team, Toastmasters District 109 (17 countries)
02 / The situation
The business side says IT is not delivering. IT says the requirements were never stable. Two people on the team now speak to each other only through ticket comments. The steering committee clears the escalation, and a week later it is back, with a new trigger and the same people.
You notice that you spend more time on side conversations and corridor politics than on the project itself. Every position is defensible, every side has good arguments. That is exactly why nobody can get out.
What it costs never shows up in a status report: delay, duplicated work, decisions taken three times over. And people who quietly checked out long before they say so.
03 / Two routes
Service A
“I moderate the conversation you cannot lead yourself.”
As an impartial third party I create the setting in which the people involved talk to each other again. I represent no side and I decide nothing. The solution stays with the people who have to live with it afterwards.
Online, in person by arrangement. In German or English.
Service B
“I work with you so that next time you can lead it yourself.”
Not a seminar on theory, but work on your actual case: which patterns keep repeating, which conversation is due, how do you walk into it, and what do you do when it goes differently than planned?
Format: online, 60 to 90 minutes.
04 / Process
01
You describe the situation, I place it in context.
02
I show you what is actually driving it, and which route fits.
03
In the agreed format, with a clear beginning and a clear end.
05 / Why me
Matthaeus Podgorski
Mediator, focus on commercial mediation
15+ years in IT, digitalisation and transformation projects as a requirements engineer, business analyst and project manager, including work for Aurubis, Airbus, AUDI, KUKA and BorgWarner.
Trained mediator with a focus on commercial mediation, Certified Professional Coach. Alongside that, the methods your projects run on: PMI project management, Scrum and SAFe, requirements engineering and change management.
International projects negotiate in English. People still tend to argue in their mother tongue. I work in German and English, and I also understand Polish, Spanish and French.
I am not the coach you first have to explain a sprint review to. And not the consultant who treats a conflict as a communication problem.
06 / Mandate and limits
As a mediator in the Harmony Team of Toastmasters District 109 I am the point of contact for conflicts in an organisation of 138 clubs across 17 countries.
district109.org/harmony-team →
Mediation is no substitute for employment law advice or for therapy. If a situation belongs there, I say so in the intro call and point you to the right place.
07 / Contact
A short intro call, by phone or Zoom, 15 to 20 minutes. You describe the situation, I place it in context and tell you whether and how I can help. Free, confidential, no preparation needed on your side.