Meet Anja | Senior Consultant IT & Salesforce Consultant
“When I have free time, I like to spend it doing yoga, playing guitar or learning Japanese.”
Anja Späte loves to learn — be it a new language or even a programming language, a culture, or topics like climate change and sustainability. The many opportunities to expand her knowledge in these and other areas are therefore what she particularly appreciates about her work at diconium. Anja enjoys sharing knowledge at least as much as she enjoys learning: read here what exactly she does at diconium, what fascinates her so much about Japan and why she joined the Digital Sustainability Hub.
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Hi Anja, you have been working as an IT consultant at diconium for more than 6 years now and already have a total of 20 years of professional experience in the industry. Where does your enthusiasm for the IT field come from?
That was in my school days. My father started his own business when I was 11. Our children’s room became his office. He taught himself programming and created websites. Being online for the first time, dialing in via ISDN, we experienced all that live as children. When I was 16 or 17, I had the opportunity to take IT as an elective subject. IT and business studies were my best subjects, so it was relatively obvious to go in the direction of business informatics.
Do you want to become a colleague of Anja at diconium? Take a look at our open positions! 💜🚀 IT & Digital Consulting / Salesforce / All vacancies
And how did you eventually come to work for diconium?
diconium was recommended to me by a friend seven years ago. The mindful atmosphere of the interview, the warm welcome in the first weeks as well as the many options to learn, grow and network made that choice easy. From the start, I had the feeling that my opinion mattered and is taken seriously.
“The mindful atmosphere of the interview, the warm welcome in the first weeks as well as the many options to learn, grow and network made that choice easy.”
Can you briefly summarize what you do at diconium?
Over the course of 20 years of professional experience, I had multiple roles, usually 2–3 at the same time: Software Engineer, Business and Technical Consultant, Project Manager, Technical Sales Person, Product Manager, (Proxy) Product Owner as well as Partner Manager.
With diconium, I can focus specifically on the role that I like best. Currently, that is working as a Consultant IT with Salesforce focus, engaging in knowledge sharing initiatives, supporting Partner Management and participating in Technical Sales. If I wanted to move into a different direction, I’m convinced that diconium would support me in this endeavor as well. I love working for different industries, diving into their unique business models and challenges. Over time, you research, think of and see various solutions to challenges. I believe that’s an important part of what makes a great consultant.
“Over the course of 20 years of professional experience, I had multiple roles, usually 2–3 at the same time: Software Engineer, Business and Technical Consultant, Project Manager, Technical Sales Person, Product Manager, (Proxy) Product Owner as well as Partner Manager.”
How does a normal working day look like for you?
Typically, meetings with customers and the development team make up approximately one third to half of my day. In these meetings, I’m very often the moderator that structures and guides through the topics as well as facilitates discussion and makes sure the intended outcome is reached.
When I’m not in meetings, I prepare process flows and technical concepts, engineer & manage requirements and research Salesforce standard and administration options for the stories of the upcoming sprints.
I also regularly set aside time for learning as well as organizing and participating in knowledge exchange, for example in the Salesforce Competence Center or IT Consultant Guild.
What are the most important skills needed in your job?
Consultants build bridges between Business and Technology — they understand and have knowledge on both sides. The role involves close collaboration with both customers and software engineers. As a former software engineer myself, I can relate to the challenges that come with engineering and creating optimal technical concepts as well as giving customers realistic feedback and suggesting helpful alternatives.
Other important skills are structuring and analytical thinking within complex scenarios: seeing the bigger picture as well as being able to operationalize it to provide the best solution for a context. Hence, I create and use diagrams a lot. From my experience, visualizations help keeping everybody on the same page when explaining and/or discussing complex topics.
“Other important skills are structuring and analytical thinking within complex scenarios: seeing the bigger picture as well as being able to operationalize it to provide the best solution for a context.”
Reflecting on your past projects, which one sticks out for you and why?
What really stands out for me is not so much a single project but the team spirit. Knowing the strengths and interests of each other, everybody has their eyes on both team happiness and project success. It’s an atmosphere where nobody is reluctant to reach out to others for help.
We value the project contributions of everybody and we’re genuinely happy for each other, e.g. when we show the sprint results to the customer. We also tell each other openly when we see room for improvement. I hope that doing fun activities together like a video night in the office, going to the trampoline hall or having a barbecue will all be possible again very soon.
“What really stands out for me is not so much a single project but the team spirit. Knowing the strengths and interests of each other, everybody has their eyes on both team happiness and project success.”
What do you like to do in your free time?
When I have free time, I like to spend it doing yoga, playing guitar or learning Japanese. The Japanese culture is very different from ours and never ceases to fascinate me, exploring the ways in which they do, invent and build things.
I also find the parallels between programming languages and natural languages interesting. With programming languages, you can always reuse the basic constructs once you have understood them. Natural languages also build on each other to some extent. But what I like most is being able to get in touch with more people. Learning a language opens new possibilities.
“When I have free time, I like to spend it doing yoga, playing guitar or learning Japanese.”
What role does sustainability play for you?
When I was 13, I had a teacher who told us on the subject of climate change: “You take care of it, I don’t care. By the time it’s getting uncomfortable, I won’t be around anyway.” That made me really angry and I asked myself: “What kind of attitude is that?”. The subject has stuck with me ever since. Regarding the combination of business studies, biology and IT, the Agentur für Arbeit told me in an interview that I was 80 years too late for this subject. From today’s perspective, I would personally say I was 10–15 years early.
At diconium, there are many initiatives and competence centers, so I can pursue what is interesting to me personally. In the first years, it was the agile focus group. Later, I joined the brand new Digital Sustainability Hub to push making our own products more sustainable.
“At diconium, there are many initiatives and competence centers, so I can pursue what is interesting to me personally.”
I also switched the technology focus from one of diconium’s partner solutions to another. Whilst doing this, I even got the chance to co-lead a team that built up a new technology competence center from scratch.
What is a digital champion for you?
A person or a company that does not only create leading-edge solutions for customers with digital means, but also makes positive impact on end customers, the environment and society as a whole their priority. Everything we do has consequences, they’re just not always easy to see. We need to broaden our perspective and strive to be more aware of them in order to make a difference. For example, even small shifts in the front- and backend of a system can have a huge effect if you multiply them with usage frequency over time.
Do you want to become a colleague of Anja at diconium? Take a look at our open jobs! 💜🚀 IT & Digital Consulting / Salesforce /All vacancies
What advice would you give a new starter at diconium?
“Use the initiatives, the network and training options diconium offers to grow in the fields you love. Let others know what you are interested in — this way we can help each other.”
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