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About

Since 1999 I have pursued my passion and proficiency in Digital Product Development while working predominantly in the payment and technology spaces. In a traditional product career, from business analyst through to Executive VP of Products, it was always teamwork in the context of the organisation that fascinated me.

My discovery of Agile in 2010 sparked a new-found thirst for learning. Since going independent in 2012, I have continued to learn & explore new ways of high-performance teamwork. 

When I’m not teaching, coaching, or mentoring Agile practitioners, leaders, or coaches, I serve leadership teams as their team coach. This way I support the unlocking of major enterprise agility improvements as the leadership team journeys towards high performance.

Over the years, I got to work with various companies across sectors (see below). The status quo is that only about 10% of teams are high-performing, leadership teams included. I am devoted to improving upon this as much as possible.

My early attempts at effecting enterprise-level & large-scale pursuits of agility that didn’t include senior management teams were less effective. Since 2014, successively working more closely with senior leaders first has been integral in mitigating the issue. Most of this practice is centred around guiding senior management teams as teams to purposeful proficiency & performance in a world of increasing complexity.

A few more bits of information about my background: Cultures around the globe fascinate me. I have run a couple of marathons so far. 1% for the Planet is a global network for healthy planet activists that I’m a proud member of. With my wife & baby-boy, we currently live in Porto, Portugal.

For a complete professional background and formal education overview, check out my LinkedIn Profile.

Practice background

Proudly partnered with …

The scope of my partnership with these leading “boutique”-sized and vastly experienced companies of people covers teaching and client work. Confidentiality provisions protect the client names and initiative details.

 Clients over the years …

Rob Stirling

I highly recommend Georg Fasching as an organisational coach. As part of the Ministry of Justice Digital and Technology Team I have worked with Georg between January 2016 and December 2017.

As part of the Digital Management team, Georg coached the group as a team, assisting it to learn its strategic goals and coaching the team in terms of its organisational growth and delivery. Georg encouraged the team to look at different ways that we could work together and to forge a greater understanding of what we were needing to deliver and how best we could do that.

I have been fortunate enough during this period to have had the assistance of Georg in various different manners working with myself as part of the Delivery profession through coaching in agile and lean practices and establishing a skills matrix to assist all members professional growth. Georg aided wider knowledge and capability growth of the wider Digital and Technology team through identifying needs and facilitating training sessions in team dynamics, agile delivery and how to understand wider government standards that had to be adhered to. Georg delivered a series of talks on Neurodiversity to improve awareness and exposure around the workplace.

During Georg’s time he also co-established an internal coaching pathway programme which I took part in. The programme was established to enable internal coaching capability to be grown without the need for external coaches. This programme focuses on a wide range of coaching skills, agile and lean practices.

Georg on a personal note is very approachable and great to have around the office. He is very passionate and knowledgeable about his field. He is the ultimate professional and fully committed to the cause he was working on. Georg would be an asset to any organisation he works with.

Rob Stirling, Head of Delivery, Ministry of Justice – Digital & Technology

Learning background

Certifications and accreditations

Further learning

‘Facilitating Exceptional Remote Learning’ with Judy Rees

‘Strategyzer Masterclass’ with Business Model Canvas creator Alex Osterwalder

‘Coaching beyond the Team’ with Esther Derby & Donald Gray

‘Coaching Agile Teams’ with Michael Hammond & Michael Spayd

‘Agile Facilitator’ with Leslie Stein & Lyssa Adkins

‘Coaching Stance’ with Cynthia Loy Darst MCC & Lyssa Adkins

‘Time to Think’ with Nancy Kline

The Intuitive Coach Advance with Lilith Joanna Flanagan MCC

Agile Product Strategy and Roadmap with Roman Pichler

Scrum Mastery Coaching Skills with Geoff Watts

My Credo

I believe in better.

Better ways of teamwork.
Better ways of product work.
Better ways of delighting our customers.
Better ways of serving our users.
Better ways of working.
Better leadership.
Better ways of improving our organisations.

We believe in better.

We believe every team has the birthright to become a dream team.

For a team to become a dream team, the team’s genius needs to do its work. Nowadays, some people have forgotten about where the term genius comes from. Nowadays, we often associate some (few) individuals with ‘being a genius’. Genius was seen as a separate entity from the individuals. ‘When genius struck’, a writer would be in flow, and creativity would bring wonderful work out of the writer.

Team Genius is already in every team. The great sculptor Michelangelo said that each piece of marble already had the statue inside it; he freed it. Just like this, team genius is already in every team. It is up to us to free it; unlock it.

Unlocking team genius requires deliberate practice on three sides …

Team Craft

The work we do in service of the team, to develop it, to enable it to fulfil its potential, to help it grow, … that is team craft.

There is a lot of know-how involved. There are several key skills involved. There are certain qualities involved. There is a deliberate practice involved. All of these combined make this work a craft. With this particular craft, you might pursue it on your own, or you might get some support & guidance.

Annual team building events aren’t doing the trick to support the team’s genius in being unlocked. Team Craft means an ongoing pursuit of better for the team; always better.

Product Craft

The work we do in the name of the product, in service of the user, to discover the product, to develop it, to enable it to fulfil its potential, to delight the customer… that is product craft.

Much like with the team, there is a lot of know-how involved. There are several key skills involved. There are certain qualities involved. There is a deliberate practice involved. All of these combined also make this work a craft.

Every product has a lifecycle, and each stage is different. Each resonates with a different Product Craft Folk Persona. While each persona is different, the great ones have at least one thing in common; they seek what’s better for the user, always better.

Leadership Craft

Leadership is a term often flung around nowadays, with little reflection on how profound it is and what it means. Leadership is a quality that every single individual can cultivate. It is an act that is enabled through the willingness of others to take one’s lead.

While Product Craft Folk and Team Craft Folk can, and ought to, develop this body of skills and qualities, the expectation is on managers, leaders, and teams thereof to truly immerse themselves in this area.

Nowadays, people often see a set of managers, leaders, or teams thereof as ‘the leadership’. While the world of work has changed significantly over the last decades, the practices of many leaders, managers, and teams thereof, … have not. … Unless they too believe in better.

Why better is better than best

The pursuit of the ‘best’ is like chasing after perfection. As a continually recovering clinical/maladaptive perfectionist, believe me when I say perfection can be debilitating. It is also an illusion. When one reaches that which was defined as perfection, from the new perspective, we can immediately discover even better ways. Ergo, perfection is an illusion. That is what the expression “continuous improvement towards perfection” means.

Also, ‘best’ suggests that there is a ‘best way’, which is just not a reality in the modern world of work. The modern world of work is filled with creativity, complexity, and change. It is a world where there is no one best way to do things. There are some rather bad ways of doing things, some rather good ways of doing things, and a few worst ways, but no one best way of doing things.

Striving for better, always better, appreciates these two important considerations. So in a way, better is best.

Where it is most needed and challenging

Much of my practice was in and with digital agencies, come digital product studios. The dynamics at this wonderful kind of organisation are as fierce as they are fulfilling. The work is very fast-paced. The clients are usually very demanding, often in a good way. The people are almost always super dedicated.

Some digital agencies still work in traditional ways with projects, staffed with proportions of people. If you happen to be with or engage with such an organisation, I created an email programme to support the evolution towards a digital product studio. Some might describe it as a transformation guide for digital agencies. While it’s packed with value, it’s on the house; enjoy. You can get it here.

The Trinity of change agency

Each of the three corners contributes collaboratively to the organisation’s development too.

Team Craft includes the removal of organisational challenges to the teams’ ability to create value. It also includes growing the appreciation of the value of cross-functional teams that overcome organisational silos.

Product Craft includes the spreading of appreciation for products over projects. It includes cultivating a healthy obsession with customer-centricity across the organisation. It, of course, includes the development of a focus on true value.

Leadership Craft is required amongst all of us who believe in better supporting the organisation’s ongoing pursuit of its betterment. “The Leadership” is often the set of people who can change the scaffolding of the organisation for the better.

All three combined ought to work in harmony to unlock the agility of the entire organisation, a.k.a. enterprise agility.

Together we can achieve better, always better.

If you share this belief and conviction, welcome. I’m at your service.

To “always better”!

– Georg Fasching