We are happy to be, to work together, to create ideas in 2024 for schwarzmann d.o.o., a company situated nearby Ljubljana, making design, engineering, fabrication and installation of prefabricated steel structure buildings. schwarzmann was nominated in 2019 for the Slovenian Gazelle award, ranking among the three fastest growing companies in the Central Slovenia -
great task for us!

The dates we are in Slovenia:
  - 2024, April 12^th and 13^th in Ljubljana.
  - September 28^th (only ICV-members) in Frankfurt/Oder and
  - November 08^th and 09^th in Ljubljana.

On April 11th, fourteen members of our work group met at Ljubljana - with a loud "hello" - the first evening we spent in the nice restaurant "Guliver" with lots of hugs, laughing and chatting...

The next day we drove to schwarzmann in Polhov Gradec, 20 km away from Ljubljana.

First action after saying hello had been a tour around, followed by defining the topics for the four teams, consisting of ICV-work group members and staff members of schwarzmann.

The topics are:
1. Process and capacity management for projects
2. Project management, process, communication and learnings
3. Identify and analyse cost/profitability variances in projects
4. Cost of flexibility - worth or not worth?

The mixed teams:

Team 1 (Process and capacity management) - team leader Olga Rudenko

Team 2 ( Project management) - team leader Borut Kadunc

Team 3 (cost/profitability) - team leader Roger Maurer

Team 4 (Cost of flexibility) - team leader Edyta Szarska

Discussion in the teams...

All the ICV internationale work group members and the schwarzmann collegues - having had an interesting day.

In the evening we have been invited by schwarzmann to the restaurant "Hisa Jamnik" in Ljubljana - great food, great talks...

Final presentation on Saturday afternoon

Saturday afternoon, back in Ljubljana: walking around and enjoying nice city - and in the evening dinner all together.

On Sunday all work group members travelled back home...
Now there is a lot of work for the teams, many meetings via Teams or Zoom - and in September we will see us again...

On saturday in september 28th we have presented and discussed the results of our four team-works. Lots of discussion, many learnings...
The day before, we met in the evening, visited the "Oderturm" (Odertower) and had a great view upon the Oder, being flooded with very very much water. This flood caused extensive damage in Czechia and southern Poland. Afterwards we have been enjoying italian dinner nearby our hotel.
On saturday afternoon we walked along the Oder, still being impressed by the flood, crossing the Europe-bridge to Slubice, the polish neighbouring town of Frankfurt/O. A very fine italian dinner in Slubice finished our meeting.

At the final meeting beginning of november nearby Ljubljana at our target company schwarzmann, the four work group teams have put the finishing touches to their presentations.

team 1: final works

team 3: everything nearly finished for tomorrow

not the best weather as in last april

In the evening we had another nice dinner together.

Final presentations
On Saturday, the four teams presented and discussed their final presentations to the owners, the CEO and his management team - followed by a discussion.
Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4: Cost of flexibility – worth or not worth

Saying thanks to our slovenian-organisator Dragica

The whole four teams together with schwarzmann collegues and management

Of course, we cannot publish the things we have learned, the ideas we brougt into schwarzmann.
But: the ideas of two teams have already been implemented during autumn 2024.

Boštjan Bevec, CEO was very satisfied with the whole process: 

"I didn’t initially realize where our journey with ICV would lead us or what we would accomplish through this project. Now, we have a fresh perspective on our current challenges and a wealth of ideas—some of which we’ve already put into action—that we will continue to implement."

Saturday afternoon, there was a wine-festival in Ljubljana, we visited a bit the city; going home mostly early on Sunday morning.

Good bye nice Ljubljana, good bye collegues from schwarzmann

Our workload for each of these is about 10 days, plus flight and travel costs. Not a small amount though:
It's great to learn with and from each other. We are a great team, have become real friends, meet privately on trips through Europe and thus live up to our motto:
    we come together,
        we work together,
             we learn from each other,
                 we develop together.

Working together is a lot of fun; if you want to join us next year - we are going again to Poland - , please contact our work group leaders:
Axel Ehberger, mail: axel.e@elexa-controlling.com or Mariusz Rzeźnikiewicz, mail: mr@mr-con.com