Sonja Franz

This has been one of my first talks in front of an international audience.

In 2015, I’ve changed a lot – in my life and myself. I moved from Hamburg to Aachen, leaving behind my family and friends, started working at a different company and changed my day-to-day work tasks. I also changed my hobbies, by the way becoming a bit more self-confident.
Was it hard? The moving part, yes. The rest: not at all. Why?
I did everything I could to make this transition as easy as possible. Everything in my head was prepared for change.

In our IT world, change is natural. We change from one version to another, we change frameworks, software and hosting partners. But what about ourselves? Yes, of course, we change, too. Slowly with time, whether we realise it or not. Sometimes more profound changes happen to us that require us to adjust ourselves to, for example, a new task in our company, a new job, a new city.
Change is stressful, but you are in control and able to influence whether it is the good kind of stressful or the bad, exhausting kind.

Since change sometimes comes rather suddenly, we all need to be ready for it. Therefore, these slides present a few tips and tricks that have helped me in the past, whether the challenge was to change jobs, tasks at work, place of residence or social circle.