Passion for Transformation
Interview with Till Balser, Owner and CEO of Tiba Transformation Group GmbH
For more than three decades, Till Balser has helped organizations navigate complex transformation projects by combining project management, organizational development, and change management through his company Tiba. One of the keys to success, he says, was recognizing that successful transformation is never just about processes or technology: it is ultimately about empowering people to embrace change, which the German economy seems to need now more than ever.
European Business: Mr. Balser, your company stands for Passion for Transformation and has been pioneering new approaches since its early days.
Till Balser: I believe we were the first consulting and training firm in Germany, back in 1989, to specialize in introducing and optimizing project management. Prior to founding Tiba, I had worked for a software company that developed one of the world’s first project management applications, which quickly attracted virtually every major DAX-listed corporation as a customer. Even then, however, it was clear to me that software alone would never be enough to improve an organization’s project performance. That realization led me to found Tiba. From the very beginning, our approach was to view project management not only through the lens of technology and methodology but also to consider it a fundamental organizational discipline.
European Business: Early on, you won one of Germany’s largest automotive manufacturers as a client as you helped them launch a far-reaching transformation program.
Till Balser: That assignment came directly from the company’s board of directors. At the time, project managers typically found themselves on the fourth or fifth management level and had very little decision-making authority. Virtually every important decision was made within the traditional functional hierarchy. We had to break down those structures so that the leaders of major vehicle development programs could report directly to the board while assuming genuine responsibility for their projects, from the initial design phase all the way through start of production. As a result, development cycles were reduced from eight years to just four.
European Business: How much pressure does a company need to feel before it is willing to embrace such a fundamental transformation?
Till Balser: At that time, the pressure was enormous. Japanese automakers were rapidly gaining market share in Europe even though they had only played a minor role a few years earlier. Strong project management, combined with simultaneous engineering, enabled German car manufacturers to dramatically shorten their traditionally lengthy development cycles and gradually close the gap with their Japanese competitors. Today, German industry is once again under tremendous pressure to change. The difference is that today’s challenges can no longer be solved through project management alone. That being said, it is also important to recognize that every major transformation will inevitably face strong resistance because it changes an organization’s structures and ways of working. That is why unwavering commitment from top management is crucial.
European Business: What else is essential for fundamental transformations to succeed?
Till Balser: First and foremost, you need professional project management to guide the organization from its current state to its desired future state. Transformation itself has to be managed as a project, with clear planning, continuous monitoring, transparent tracking, and disciplined execution. Every transformation fundamentally reshapes an organization’s core processes and all of the supporting processes connected to them. As consultants, we have to adapt both the transformation process and the leadership approach to each individual situation. At the same time, every transformation is also a profound change initiative. That is why experienced change management professionals are indispensable. They help leaders and employees navigate the journey together. When transformations fail, it is usually because the objectives were never communicated clearly enough to the people responsible for implementing them.
European Business: Project management itself is also undergoing significant changes today.
Till Balser: For the past decade, our profession has been engaged in what has almost become a philosophical debate. On one side are traditional project managers who try to plan even the largest projects down to the smallest detail and sometimes find themselves adhering to those plans too rigidly. On the other side are agile advocates who argue that traditional project management has become obsolete. In reality, most organizations now operate in both worlds, as agile methods have become firmly established, particularly in operations as well as in R&D and IT.
European Business: What challenges arise when those two worlds collide?
Till Balser: Many organizations are managing well over a thousand projects simultaneously. Such portfolios require structured governance, and that means even smaller agile initiatives must ultimately be integrated into enterprise-wide reporting and management systems. That is why, at Tiba, we are advocates of adaptive project management, which combines the flexibility of agile methodologies with holistic governance across the entire organization. This approach prevents companies from losing control – for example, over project budgets – in case agile working methods and traditional organizational structures fail to work together effectively.