Samater Liban

Digital marketing & advertising expert. 18 yrs as freelancer and entrepreneur. After adventure in corporate network back to the future! I have created my first (what today is called) startup in 1999 and failed fast ;-)

I then gained thorough experience in web based technologies working as the lead in operations for an agency in Germany (Wiesbaden), where I also encountered the phrases "XP" and "Agile" for the first time. In 2003 I then started my own consulting and service company for digital projects (from website, to web based systems like CMS, online marketing, apps and interface planning and management) which I grew significantly until 2013.

In 2013 I was asked by a Korean ad agency (part of the Samsung group) to support them in establishing the means for a "hybrid" approach and management of goals, people and projects - meaning ensuring that the goals were efficiently incorporated in all communication fields (e.g. communication products in fairs & exhibitions, print, TV and digital) from from strategy planning to operations within a to be established process (coming from agile and especially scrum) and embedding the to be motivated employees of the agency.

Although here I mainly had to work in a "scrum-but"-environment, it showed very well the hidden and obvious challenges a corporation faces when trying to implement/find the solution to the fast and ever changing digital world. And with this experience I was able to dive into the topics such as the Lean Startup/-Management, Business Canvas, Value Proposition Design and other concepts and tools aimed at allowing us to quicker find the perfect fit of people and their competence and needs and fitting tools. Working for a major German bank all of 2015 I was able to work in a rather pure Scrum project in the team (whereas the Stakeholders were all Waterfall driven) and this way as a Proxy-PO produce a MVP with the PO that proved the true advantages of the Scrum increments.

Also - in this team we found a way to find functioning communication interfaces between the Scrum driven team in operations and the waterfall driven Stakeholders and partner-teams in the bank allowing us to avoid a "Scrum-but" solution in the team and appeasing the Waterfall driven teams and persons. Since the end of 2016 I am back in the "real world" - outside any corporation with love for useless KPIs, forecasting and reportings and am looking to support other companies with my knowledge and experience.