bBox Project Manager speaks

University: University of Economics, Prague

Field of study: International Management

Most interesting achievement/ prize: Award of Excellent Master’s Thesis (Evaluation of regulation in electricity industry) and Awarded project about Corporate Social Responsibility for Societe Generale

Favorite tools: Microsoft Project, Gantt Project

Favorite (technical) website: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Business_Technology, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology

‘‘If someone masters the art of communicating serious issues and combining it with big portions of good humor, that is Stan. I believe I speak for my colleagues too when I say that our leader made our days at work. What he likes most is travelling, and this could be easily observed from his general knowledge of the world. He has visited more than 25 countries so far and among the most interesting experiences is Asia. Besides, he is able to conversate in English, Russian, German, Slovak and, of course, Czech. So, you choose the language. ’’

                                       

Claudia Corches: ‘‘Stan, I want us to begin with some funny details. I know that in the first phase, you had your phone interview with Fiducia IT AG representatives while being in Syria. Tell us more. ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘ Yes, that’s right. When Fiducia scheduled the interview for me I was in Aleppo in Syria with 40 Celsius degrees  and extreme humidity. So I was sitting in a shabby hotel room with no air-co and for an hour I was holding the phone next to my ear. Naturally, one sweat during the interview even at the room temperature, so after my interview I looked like after a football match. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘How did you feel about the opportunity of working for Fiducia IT AG? ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘I definitely loved it. It was difficult to imagine that a company which provides core banking software for almost 800 banks, 100 thousand bankers and 66 million accounts, asks a group of international students to propose how could their user interface look like in the future. And not only that, Fiducia IT AG provided us with all the necessary resources, knowledge support and 6 months of freedom. That’s an opportunity window which does not open every day. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘You not only have academic background in the field of banking, but also have achieved working experience at Societe Generale and Uni Credit Bank. How do you perceive the banking world today? ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘I was always attached to the finance world, well… because the most basic rule says “cash is the king”. So, I always tried to understand the financial relations, since I know their importance in any kind of business. And this drove me to banking, which I took as my minor at university and also to some projects with banks, too. ’’  

Claudia Corches: ‘‘You had no experience with IT until the bBox Project. What do you think were the components that made you an effective leader in this context? ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘In any case, leading an IT project without previous IT experience is very difficult. Naturally, I tried to get the basics of software development and project management in IT, but sometimes I felt simply lost. In these cases, I had to rely on my team, which proved to be a very trustworthy one.

Later on, the team found its way to cooperate and I could finally focus on the project management, so ensuring the programmers get the right information from Nair and Clara, prioritize them and deliver code in time. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘Your job was not only related to scanning this new environment and leading the team. You also got involved into building and shaping our new concepts for banking. Please explain in what way you did contribute for a change. ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘Eventhough my primary role was project manager, I just cannot miss the opportunity to express my imagination how the future banking system could look like. In a later phase of the project, we made a very efficient concept development trio, when Nair float in out-of-the box-solutions, Clara put her process analytical input and I was consolidating it all with a little sniff of the business world. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘Stan, I kept trying to understand… What has been happening inside the leader’s mind all this six month time? ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘Simple idea ‘Managers do things right; leaders do the right thing.’ So, I needed to literally every day review, if we were going the right way. Since the team was quite passionate about pretty much anything and they would do a tremendous job even on absolutely not-project-related tasks, in my mind I thought again and again if everybody was at in any moment doing the task that would help reaching the project goal the most. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘I was really curious to know: how easy was for you to perceive us, as your team members, to sense our capabilities and capacity to execute tasks in a coherent way?’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘Good question. Every team needs time until they find the right working style and division of roles. For the bBox and naturally for me, it took approximately 2,5 months. It is long time, but one must take into account that we came from totally different backgrounds and we were supposed to work on innovation, where any standard or guideline would do only harm. After this time, I finally learned the strengths, weaknesses and capabilities of each member, so since then, we have been working (at least in my opinion) in a coherent and efficient way.’’

 Claudia Corches: ‘‘You are also a very experienced AIESECer. Which is the most interesting project you have ran and how has all this been helping you in your work outside our organization?’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘In 2007, I spent almost a whole year as a project manager of Career Days. This is the biggest Czech career fair, with 40 top companies and 1700 students, who attend various sessions with those employers. This event required over 10 months of preparation, and translated into an organization committee of 70 people and 20 subcontractors. And my role was to deliver this event, from the first scratch of concept to closing report. Attractive experience, isn’t it? ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘What was bBox for you in the very beginning and please, tell me, to what extent is it different now? ’’

Stanislav Haba: ‘‘The bBox at the beginning was a huge question mark for me: What should we do? How? What quality? What to do first? To be honest, for the first weeks I was sometimes a little bit lost, because the assignment was defined broadly, the team did not know each other and foremost those breakthrough ideas did not come when one requested.

Now, less than 48 hours before the end of the project, the bBox stands for amazing solutions, for prove of great things that young people can do, for successful cooperation between Fiducia and students, for easy banking systems, for financial services as fun and for the future of banking in general. ’’

Claudia Corches: ‘‘Thank you, Stan. It was a pleasure working with you!’’