Dr. Wolfgang Richter is the founder and CEO of JIPP.IT GmbH, an ICT services company located in Gleisdorf/Austria. He and his team specializes in improving processes and structures by using agile methods and principles. The portfolio comprises software development, portal development, IT Training, IT consulting, and Innovation. Scrum is his preferred method for software development projects.

Dr. Richter studied Telecommunications and Informatics at the Technical University Graz where he gained his MSc. In his studies he focused on Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Virtual Communities. Additionally he conducted studies in Software Development and Economics, and Psychology. He earned his PMP from PMI, a CSM, and CSP from the Scrum Alliance, and a CIM (Certified Innovation Manager) from a local institute in Austria.

His philosophy is that a combination of theoretical background and practical experience is mandatory for leaders, coaches, and trainers to provide quality. He participated in over 100 projects and programs in Europe, Australia, USA, and worked with outsourced teams in China and India. He is studying and applying agile principles since 1998, and especially Scrum since 1999. Since 2002 he helped many teams and companies to transition from traditional approaches towards agility, especially Scrum.

He gained his PhD with honours from the University Klagenfurt, where he focused on the Relation between Project Management, Organizational Structures, and Agile Software Development Methods.

For his doctoral thesis he conducted a meta-study about the efficiency of methods and combinations of project management standards and software development methods in projects. In this study the results of 50.000 projects were analysed. Some findings are:

Top Software Development Practices most effectively used in projects, sorted by effectiveness:

1.)    Iterative Development

2.)    Leveraging experience from past projects

3.)    Determination of the exact details together with the customer and rating based on certain criteria

4.)    Developer tests

Factors influencing software development, sorted by importance:

1.)    Good team collaboration

2.)    Providing good quality

3.)    A motivated team to provide a good end-result

4.)    Appropriate and active user involvement, user collaboration and continuous communication with the users

5.)    Availability of sufficient qualified employees

Factors influencing project management, sorted by importance:

1.)    Executive support, commitment of the top level management and existence of a business goal

2.)    Clearly defined business objectives

3.)    Delivering on time/having a clearly defined schedule

4.)    Availability of sufficient qualified employees

5.)    Experienced project manager

6.)    Effective controlling

Based on all findings and results, a combination of Goal Directed Project Management (GDPM) together with Scrum an XP seems to be the most promising blend of methods and standards for successful projects. Individually Scrum is the preferred choice.

If you are interested in more findings, historical backgrounds to traditional and agile approaches, or optimization strategies, please contact Dr. Richter directly.

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