Skatteverket, June 30, 2022. Photo by Aki Kärkkäinen.
Today's my last day at Skatteverket (The Swedish Tax Agency) as Scrum Master consultant. A lot has happened since I started up my team in 2019, in the same year when Skatteverket established its new IT department in Malmö for digital transformation projects.
It's been rewarding and exciting to see the new department grow and mature, work with my team and others, and be part of the larger organisation's agile journey through challenging times with the pandemic, from the "old normal" to the still emerging "new normal".
During the last three years, we built and delivered new e-services not only for non-residents and foreign companies registering in Sweden ("TAIS", Tillfällig Anställning I Sverige), but also for Swedish businesses: special taxes on selected goods and services ("Punktskatter"), and short-term financial support for employers ("Korttidsstöd"). A large part of this work was done remotely, in distributed teams, in four different SAFe Agile Release Trains.
Special thanks to everyone in my team that I had the pleasure of working with between 2019-2022: Fredde Kullberg, Tibor Lundberg, Andreas Tilly, Andreas Åberg, Amir Mujezinovic, Hassan Ftouni, Sofia Dahlgren, Oscar Linde, Erik Granbom, Nguyen Lam, Geir V. Hagen, Linda Lundin Makungu, Daniel Sperling, Isabell Garsten Schön, Elin Kornehed, Hawoay Tao, Inger M Larsson and Nicolas Luco Martinez. I leave the team in good health, and in the capable hands of my colleague and successor Hassan Ftouni :)
Members of my team at Skatteverket, June 29, 2022. Left to right: me, Fredde (Fredrik) Kullberg, Amir Mujezinovic, Hassan Ftouni, Tibor Lundberg, Andreas Tilly. Photo by Aki Kärkkäinen.
Many thanks also to my manager Håkan Bengtsson, my Scrum Master colleagues, Product Managers, Product Owners, other teams, my consultant home One Agency Sweden AB, Softronic, and everyone involved. If you ever get a chance to work for Skatteverket, I'd recommend you do it!
The icing on the cake was Alistair Cockburn's visit in June 2022. Being one of the co-signers of the Agile Manifesto, it was great to hear him talk about his Heart of Agile approach, and participate in his Elephant Carpaccio exercise! Lots of fun :)
So, what's next? Not sure yet, but #remotework, #flexible, #international, perhaps?
With that, I wish you all a wonderful summer!