When delivery speeds up, coordination becomes the bottleneck.

AI can dramatically increase output. It can also increase confusion, competing priorities, and coordination overhead. I help product and engineering organisations keep the second from cancelling out the first.

Let’s talk

Focus

Where work gets stuck between teams

Organisations rarely struggle because people lack skill or motivation. They struggle because the work that matters crosses team boundaries, reporting lines and competing priorities. Nobody owns the crossing. That cost is rarely measured, so it is rarely managed.

Decision latency

How long a decision takes to travel

Decisions that need three groups in a room spend most of their life waiting rather than being made. The delay is usually concentrated in one step, and not the step people suspect.

Team boundaries

Where the work is divided

Boundaries drawn for a smaller company keep operating long after the work has changed shape. Every crossing has a price, and most organisations have never counted it.

Stakeholder alignment

What drifts between conversations

Agreement reached in a meeting decays quietly until someone discovers it has gone. Which stakeholders drift, and how often they need bringing back, is designable rather than accidental.

Conflict and disagreement

What nobody is saying

Unspoken conflict between teams gets attributed to personalities when it is usually structural. Naming what a disagreement is actually about is what makes it workable.

Services

How I support organisations

Structure changes slowly, and it only holds when the people running it change how they work. So coaching usually runs alongside whatever is being restructured, and a workshop is how a group settles something that meetings have not. Which of the three you start with depends on where the work is stuck.

Leadership coaching

Weekly or bi-weekly, over several months

Sustained work with the leader who owns the problem and has to act. Sessions follow whatever is live that week rather than a syllabus, with time to examine difficult situations and prepare for conversations. The work runs alongside structural change.

Workshops and training

One or two days, on site, for a team or a leadership group

The group works on its own material rather than a case study. Typical subjects are how work crosses team boundaries, where decisions wait, and how stakeholders are kept aligned. People leave holding something they wrote themselves.

Organisational review

Two weeks, fixed scope and price

Interviews across the teams in scope, a mapping workshop, and a short written recommendation naming the few changes worth making and the ones worth leaving alone. Longer work follows when the recommendation is taken up.

Clients

Organisations I have worked with

Simon’s guidance has been transformative for leaders at all levels: Executives, product managers, and team coaches. What sets him apart is his exceptional ability to go beyond traditional coaching methods. His wealth of experience and unique approach have provided our team with invaluable insights, fostering both individual growth and sustainable organisational improvement.

Markus Siegmann Director business process digitalization at BD Rowa

I am very happy that Simon is an inspiring element of our journey. With his great experience with different organizations and his practical support based on very good tool knowledge, we have improved our planning phase, supported teams and started a promising process to take our organization with 40 teams in 4 locations on 2 continents to the next level.

Markus Weigand Release manager at Siemens

I had the pleasure of working with Simon for several years on various projects focused on change management, leadership coaching, and agile working methods. Simon consistently demonstrated exceptional expertise and dedication. He possesses excellent communication skills and is able to effectively lead and coach individuals at all levels of an organization. Simon has a proven track record of success, and is an invaluable asset to any team looking to drive positive change and to achieve goals.

Ulrike Müller Managing director at Volkswagen

My experience was fantastic. Simon is able to take complex problems and complex workflows, understand them, and identify the areas that can help improve. He’s very patient and incredibly enthusiastic about his job. I learned a lot from him.

Marco Salvioli Mariani Lead product manager at SumUp

Simon is a very professional coach. His experience and approach facilitate the change design and implementation. I would recommend Simon for large and difficult change management projects.

Maurizio Gabriele Project manager at European Central Bank

Experience

How I came to this work

I have worked in software and product development for more than two decades. Since 2015, my focus has been coaching, training, and organisational change, first at agile42 and independently since 2023. Before that I ran engineering organisations and worked as an interim CTO, giving me first-hand experience of the leadership and coordination challenges I help clients address today.

since 2023

Consultant and coach, independent

Coaching the leadership group at BD Rowa through a period of organisational change. Improving how software development, product management, release management and quality management work together at Siemens, across four locations and more than forty teams. Strengthening product management practice at Kaiko Systems.

2015 - 2023

Coach and trainer, agile42

Clients spanned healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, finance, cybersecurity, and education. Leadership and collaboration at Volkswagen’s Future Center Europe, product development at SumUp, a portfolio system for Bundesdruckerei IT, and JTI’s Agile Champion programme reaching 20,000 employees worldwide.

2011 - 2015

Interim CTO, Rocket Internet and foodpanda

Running product and engineering organisations through rapid growth and international expansion. At Rocket Internet, launching new ventures with teams of up to a hundred people. At foodpanda, product development across more than thirty countries.

2009 - 2011

Co-founder and CTO, Motivado

Co-founded an interactive video coaching platform with software developers and psychologists. The company was recognised by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology for its approach to personal development.

2001 - 2009

Software developer

Freelance software and web development in travel and e-commerce, ranging from application architecture and large-scale refactoring to frontend and backend development. Also worked as an animator on the award-winning short film Judas & Jesus.

Contact

Getting in touch

If coordination has become a bottleneck in your organisation, I’d be happy to discuss your situation.

contact@simsab.net

Or find me on LinkedIn.