Welcome!

Welcome to my personal blog on agile software development!

About me

My name is Peter Häfliger (sometimes spelt Haefliger when the dots are not available).

I hold a Master’s Degree in Computational Science and Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in DevOps Leadership and Agile Methods from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. I have been working in the software industry since 2001.

Since 2008, I have been with Avaloq (since 2020 part of NEC), a leading financial technology and service provider, in various roles such as software developer, project manager, team lead, business analyst and scrum master. I currently serve as product owner of our Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions.

If you are interested in more details about my education or my professional career, please see my profile on linkedin.

How I understand the Product Owner (PO) role

I love the Product Owner role because it allows me to combine all the technical, business, management and leadership skills acquired in my earlier roles of developer, business analyst, scrum master and team lead.

The Product Owner wants to build the right thing, the Development Team wants to build it right and the Scrum Master wants to build it fast. A great team knows how to balance these different interests.

— Barry Overeem: The Scrum Master as a Teacher

I have lived all three roles in this triangle but always felt that the PO role is the most important. Building the wrong thing right and fast creates no value. The Product Owner ensures that the team builds the right thing.

For my understanding of software development, also see my blog post on software development as a multidisciplinary endeavor.

About this blog

I have created this blog as a repository of thoughts and ideas written down for later reference and discussion. Sometimes the act of writing it down already helps me structure a thought or shape an idea.

All views expressed are my personal opinion and I do take the liberty to update posts as I learn more.

Topics and interests

As a former scrum master and current product owner, I have great interest in #agilepractices and software development #culture but also in more technical #programming and software engineering (#swe) topics. That’s why I like the holistic approach of #devops.

I am passionate about #language(s) and #literature. With German mother tongue and living in a German-speaking country but working in an international company and married to a Brazilian wife, I move back and forth between German, English and Portuguese on a daily basis. I read a lot, not only agile and technical literature, but also novels and short stories, mostly in English but also in German and less frequently in Portuguese.

In the summer of 2021, I took a fiction writing class with Maria Alejandra Barrios Vélez organized by the Gotham Writers but did not pursue fiction writing any further after that. I came to the conclusion that I am a reader, not a writer. At least not a fiction writer. Maybe a bit of a technical writer / essayist. Let’s see in what direction this blog eventually develops.

In July 2025, I started learning Lithuanian. If you want to know how this came about, read my two-part article on my first trip to Vilnius.

Tools and technologies

This site is created with HUGO, an open-source static site generator. HUGO allows me to exclusively focus on content written in markdown and not worry about formatting or styling. I manage and edit my content in replit which allows me to work from any machine without local installation. I use github for back-up and version control and netlify for building, deploying and hosting the site. I use Caio Lente’s Bear Cub theme because I like its elegant simplicity and the author’s design philosophy as explained here and here.

The pilgrim icon and avatar

Some years ago when I needed to choose an avatar for a JIRA profile, I first thought of the usual characters with which we try to identify ourselves as developers, like the ninja or the samurai. But then I remembered the scrum guide and started reflecting on the scrum values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect, and suddenly a very different character came to my mind: the pilgrim.

The pilgrim has a vision and decides to embark on a journey to an important goal. Just think of the Wise Men from the East in the Gospel of Matthew: When they suddenly detect a new star in the sky, they know that an old prophecy has been fulfilled. They immediately want to go see the Messiah. They don’t know how to get there or how long it will take them. They just follow the star.

The pilgrim is completely committed to their goal and focused on their mission and has enormous courage: They leave their comfort zone without knowing the exact route to the goal nor the challenges ahead. They are agile and open-minded – able and willing to learn on the way. They are humble and respect the people who share or cross their path.

That’s why I decided to create my own pilgrim icon:

I have used it in most of my profiles since.

Every software project is a pilgrimage. Most of the time, not only the path to the goal is unknown, but even the goal itself is moving. That’s why we constantly need to experiment, inspect and adapt¹: