Advice for emigrating to Germany

Due to recent events, I'd like to write some basic advice for any of my American readers who might be considering moving to Germany. After all, the USA took in a lot of Germans when Germany went through dark and troubled times, so it's only fair if Germany returns the favor.

Here are the major options I am aware of.

Via citizenship in an EU country

If you have citizenship in an EU member nation - or Norway, Iceland, or Liechtenstein - you are in luck. You can visit Germany whenever you want for up to three months and then can stay if you have found a job or some means of supporting yourself - and being within Germany makes finding a job a lot easier.

Note that the UK still counts as an "EU member nation" for this purpose - Article 50, which is a prerequisite for the Brexit, has not been triggered yet, and even afterwards there will be a two year transition period where the UK will still be a member. What happens afterwards is less clear, but if you have established yourself in Germany until then there will likely be options for staying.

You might have heard that there are possibilities of gaining German citizenship if you have German ancestors. This option exists, but only in a very few specific cases - one of your ancestors must have been deprived of German citizenship during the Third Reich for "Political, Racial, or Religious reasons". If your ancestors emigrated before the 30th of January 1933 and the 9th of May 1945, you are out of luck.

As a student

This is one of the easier ways of getting in, and actually a great opportunity. For starters, no public German university currently charges any tuition fees - even to foreigners. Furthermore, many German universities actually offer English-language degrees and courses these days, so you don't even need to speak the language upon arrival - although I still strongly recommend learning it as quickly as possible once you get here, since it will make your life a lot easier.

As you are presumably not an EU citizen (otherwise you would have chosen the option above), you do need to demonstrate that you have adequate funds for your first year of studies on a locked bank account - currently, that amount is 8,640 Euros. You don't actually have to spend it all (though living expenses, especially rent, should not be underestimated), but you do need to demonstrate that you have it. Furthermore, as a non-EU student you are somewhat limited in your ability to work on the side - there is a maximum of "120 full or 240 half days per year" that you are allowed to work. Exceptions exists for student assistants working at universities, and if you have skills that are in particular demand you might also get an exception for other types of work, but you shouldn't count on it.

Your first stop for information relating to studying in Germany is the website of the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service. Particular requirements applying to American students can be found here.

By finding a job in Germany

This is more tricky. While you can stay in Germany for up to three months on a tourist visa and look for a job, you need to leave after that and then apply for a job visa while back in the United States. Which requires that you have a job offer from an employer in Germany and that employer must vouch that they couldn't find an EU citizen who is as well qualified for the job as you are. This is a mere formality in some fields, but a lot trickier in others. As a general rule, people with skills that are highly sought after in the USA that are applicable elsewhere will have a much easier time. If you are a good software developer or a first-grade engineer there might be opportunities for you, but if you are an expert in American case law you are going to have problems. Look around on job boards like Monster or Stepstone for jobs with English-language job titles and do take note of the language proficiency requirements.

Universities and other research institutes might be some of the best opportunities, since they are used to having international employees and how to deal with their needs. And departments always need new PhD students - these are paid poorly, but at least in the STEM fields it's usually enough for one person to live on (as I know from personal experience). Just make sure that you get out of the universities in time, as long-term career perspectives there are dismal and staying there too long will make it more difficult to get an industry job (as I also know from personal experience).

Beyond that, if you are already working for a multinational corporation you might be able to get a transferral to Germany - it will certainly be easier than applying with a German company that doesn't know you.

By applying for asylum

Sorry, but no. Things would have to deteriorate a lot in the USA for any German authority to even consider granting an American citizen asylum, and this would also require German-American political relations to sour so badly that German authorities no longer care about the political fallout from such a decision. Put this option out of your mind and concentrate on one of the more realistic options outlined above.

Useful Links

• Toytown Germany: An English-language site for expatriates in Germany, with fairly large and active forums.
• Expatica: Another website for expatriate with its own Germany section.
• Expats in Germany Blog Directory: Read how other expatriates deal with life in Germany so that you know what you are getting into. Heck, even read these blogs even if you aren't considering moving to Germany - they are frequently enormously entertaining in their own right.

Any Questions or Comments?

Obviously, moving to another country is a huge topic, and this post is intended to give only the barest outline and a starting point for further discussions. Have any additional questions? Ask them in the comments, and I will try to answer them in future posts. Do you have your own experience with being an expatriate and/or living in Germany? Share your insights here as well.

The Brexit Project - Index and Overview

As I pointed out in my previous post, I had to do a "thesis" of sorts for my IPMA certification ("Transfernachweis" in German) - an examination of a real or fictional project from the point of view of all the major aspects of project management.

The certification organization demanded a certain outline for this thesis, and I think this outline is useful enough that I will reuse it for the Brexit Project. The outline is listed below, and as I finish new posts for this project I will add them to this page. This does not necessarily represent a chronological list - as in my thesis, I expect to go back and forth between different subjects a lot - but it serves as a useful starting point.

0. Miscellaneous posts

• The Brexit Project according to IPMA - a Project Management Case Study

1. Project Description

What is the background of the project? Who initiated the project? Who are the "customers"? What are the project goals?

2. Project Environment and Stakeholders

What is the overall context of the project? Which people, organizations, factions have a stake in its outcome, and how should they be managed?

3. Risk Analysis

What risks threaten the success of the project? What measures can be taken to counteract the risks?

4. Project Organization

How should the project be organized? What role do the individual participants in the project play, and what are their responsibilities? How should the project members communicate with each other?

5. Phase Planning

What are the main phases of the project? What are the important milestones?

6. Project Structure Plan

What are the individual work packages? How do the organize the work packages into an effective system?

7. Task Scheduling and Planning

What tasks must be accomplished in which order? Which delays in individual tasks will cause delays for the entire project?

8. Resource/Cost Planning

What funds, expertise, and other resources are required for the project? At which times are these resources needed, and how can we make sure the resources are available at these times?

9. Behavioral Competence

How do we approach negotiations effectively? How do the stay focused on achieving the desired results? How do we deal with conflicts and crises? And how can we foster creativity in finding solutions?

10. Miscellaneous Topics

What is our approach to Quality Management, Configuration Management, and Change Management? How do we approach the project start and the project end?



Can you think of any important project management-related aspects that are missing from this list? If so, leave a comment below. And if you know of any company in need of a certified project manager - especially one with strong expertise in the field of renewable energy/energy management - I am still available, and here is my CV!

The Brexit Project according to IPMA - a Project Management Case Study

First, some personal background: I've worked as a project manager in a department developing new energy management/demand response applications (basically, matching energy consumption with the highly variable energy production of renewable energy sources) for four years. Getting involved in project management was actually a semi-accident - I had applied for a different job at the same organization, but the head of the Energy Management department got hold of my CV, liked what he saw, and offered me a job in his department when I came in for the interview.

In the beginning there was still some discussion whether my work should focus on pure project management or involve software development as well. After a while, I decided to focus on the former - my reasoning was that my development skills were not as good and up-to-date as those of the full-time developers, and if I split my attention between development and management I'd never catch up with them anyway. So the most efficient approach would be to focus on all the administrative, bureaucratic, and frankly political aspects of the projects, take care of the overall planning and keeping an eye on the big picture - and thus ensure that the developers could carry on with the jobs they were trained and paid to do instead of being distracted by all sorts of other stuff that had nothing to do with software.

All in all, this approach worked quite well - the developers appreciated it that I had their backs and let them do their work, and to my surprise I quite enjoyed being the ringleader of the Circus. Sadly, it was only a temporary position, and while I did get a two-year contract extension a third one was not possible for internal reasons.

Since then I've been on a job hunt, and earlier this year I decided to take the opportunity to get some additional training in the field of project management - while four years of project management experience is not insignificant, most of it was "on-the-job training" and "learning-by-doing", and I had realized during several job interviews that the interviewers were fishing for specific project management terms and phrases that I simply hadn't been familiar with until this point. I mean, of course we did "Stakeholder Management" at my old department, we just never called it that - it was just - "keeping our partners and customers informed and doing damage control whenever they were worried about a particular issue".

When deciding which project management certification course to take, I learned that there were three main types of project management certification:

• PMI (originating in the United States)
• PRINCE2 (originating in the UK)
• IPMA (originating in Europe)

While there are certification courses available in Germany for all three, I decided on getting an IPMA Level D certificate. One reason was that various people I had consulted claimed that the former two focused almost exclusively on project management processes, while IPMA (while not neglecting processes by any means) also had a large focus on the human element, such as team building and leadership. Another reason is that to get an IPMA Level D certification you need not only regurgitate key facts during written and verbal exams, but actually put them into practice - by writing a 50+ page document examining a real or fictional project according to the project management standards and practices established by IPMA (I am told that these days only the German branch of IPMA requires this thesis). And from my long experience in academia on both sides of the lecture room I know the difference between "memorizing stuff" and "actually putting it into practice".

I received my certification in July, but I think it's a good idea to refresh my knowledge from time to time. My work on the fictional project was very useful to get a grasp on all the assorted aspects of project management, and thus I want to tackle a new project as a case study. And now I have decided on a case study:

The Brexit.

You might interject: "Isn't it a bit presumptive of someone who has only an IPMA Level D certification and only four years of project management experience to tackle one of the single biggest projects out there?" But frankly, it's hard to see how I could do worse. Immediately after the Brexit vote it became clear that no one in the UK political establishment (with the possible exception of Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party) had planned for this outcome, and much of the time since has been spent flailing around and making mutually contradictory statements about what the Brexit means and how to proceed. Even after Theresa May got rid of her competitors for the office of Prime Minister with almost Merkelian efficiency the outlook remains exceedingly murky.

Thus, it's time someone approached the Brexit as a project management case study and examine its various aspects from the perspective of established project management standards. What are the actual goals of this project - in terms of results, costs, time schedules or social effects? Who are the assorted stakeholders, and what are their goals - and how do their goals and views affect the project? What are the associated risks, and how can they be managed? How should the project be organized? What are the project phases and milestones? How should the individual work packages be planned?

And so forth - there have been lots of statements what the Brexit ought to mean, or not to mean, but there has been little debate on how to put it into practice. If nothing else, maybe this series of posts will help encourage some people to start thinking in the right directions. And, along the way, I will try to explain what project management is actually about - useful for anyone considering shifting their career into that direction, as well as those who have experienced project management from the perspective of being managed.

Some further notes:

• I strongly welcome feedback from those with greater expertise than mine in the fields of UK politics, European politics, and project management. I do not expect to know everything I need to know going into this series - indeed, I expect I will do a lot of revising as I learn more. But this is the way of projects - they always get more complicated as you go in.
• I am basing my elaborations on project management mostly on my IPMA course material - which is in German. I will try to use the closest English-language terms, but I might pick the wrong phrase from time to time. If you note any discrepancies, please correct me!

The IPMA course material

An index of all Brexit Project-related posts can be found here. And if you know of any company in need of a certified project manager - especially one with strong expertise in the field of renewable energy/energy management - I am still available, and here is my CV!

The Brexit Fallout

I wrote this to an American pen-pal, and decided to republish it here as a short primer on the Brexit and its consequences.

---

Hello!

It's been a while since I heard from you. I must say that your current electoral cycle is absolutely riveting and has me glued to the news - "my favorite soap opera", indeed! However, now that we've had our own riveting events here in Europe (and I don't mean the European Soccer Cup, which I personally couldn't care less about) I thought I should write you my thoughts on it.

Europe of course had the same problems as the rest of the developed world - stagnating median incomes and increasing job insecurity. The financial crisis of 2008 exacerbated this, as did the handling of the Euro crisis and how European leaders handled it. Unfortunately, European leaders settled on "austerity" as the solution, which meant that the economic fallout dragged on, usually to the detriment of the poor and middle classes. While the UK was not subject to the austerity mandates of the European Central Bank - not being a member of the Eurozone in the first place - its current government nevertheless committed to austerity, slashing down public services and generally making life worse for everyone but the rich.

But of course, whenever things go badly, the main thing for political leaders is to find someone to blame other than themselves. And a very old standby is to blame the Evil Foreigners - I am sure you recognize the style. In the UK (and to a lesser degree, in the rest of Europe), "Blame Bruessels" is a popular variant - easy to do, since the workings of the EU bureaucracy are arcane and the EU does have a fair number of screw-ups.

To appease the EU haters within the ranks of his own party, Cameron promised a referendum on leaving the EU (the "Brexit") should he get elected, and he made good on his promise, even though he wanted the referendum to fail. However, other members of the Tories who wanted to replace Cameron seized on the referendum as a way of weakening him, publicly taking pro-Brexit stances. The idea was that if there was only a narrow victory for Remain, then Cameron would be so weakened that he would be forced to abdicate sooner or later, since he had staked his credibility on Remain.

Yesterday the British voters have spoken, and there was a slim but definite majority in favor of Leave.

Now the interesting part is what happens next. There is a formal process for leaving the EU - Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which you can read here.

Not a very lengthy formal process, mind you. But if the UK government is serious about this, they need to invoke this article, and then - if all further negotiations fail - the UK leaves two years after it was invoked.

Cameron has already announced that he plans to step down as Prime Minister in October. It is unlikely that he will invoke Article 50 while he is still in office - he will probably prefer it if all the consequences and blame fall on his successor.

Meanwhile, the Leave faction is in a disarray - many of their prominent supporters didn't really expect that they will win this, and thus have no actual plan for the process of leaving the EU. (Their promises during the campaign went on the lines of: "We will make new treaties, the best treaties, and have the EU pay for them!")

The European Council, in the meantime, is pushing for the UK government to invoke Article 50 as quickly as possible:

"We now expect the United Kingdom government to give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be. Any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty. We have rules to deal with this in an orderly way. Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union sets out the procedure to be followed if a Member State decides to leave the European Union. We stand ready to launch negotiations swiftly with the United Kingdom regarding the terms and conditions of its withdrawal from the European Union."

They are correct in this, of course - any uncertainty will be detrimental to the economy of both the UK and the rest of Europe, since businesses hate uncertainty - as today's drops in the stock and currency markets show. And European leaders have certainly reasons for wanting to get members off the voting tables if these members will soon leave and thus no longer have to live with the consequences of their votes.

But this is also a fairly standard pressure tactic. The hand that the UK government is negotiating with is already fairly weak, and as soon as they invoke Article 50 it will get even weaker - if they don't get any replacement agreements until the end of the two-year period, they will get nothing at all.

The Brexit leaders are beginning to realize this. Boris Johnson, one of the most prominent Brexit leaders and likely successor to Cameron, has already made a statement today. And in it, he said that "there is no need for haste" and "there is no need to invoke Article 50".

So we will be in the odd position that the Brexit leaders - those with any economic sense left, that is - want to delay the Brexit, and the rest of the EU wants the UK out as quickly as possible. Heck, every time the UK government waffles and delays, they can say: "Why do you disrespect the will of your people like this? Hurry up!" And Johnson, if he gets the PM slot, will already be in a bad spot, because the British economy will take a massive hit from this - which will fall back on him.

It would be hilarious if it didn't affect so many people.


Best regards,

- Jürgen