Portrait photo of Peter Flucher

Peter Flucher

Mixing Humans and Non-Humans · Graz

Data · People · Complexity · Change

Good teams are made of people and things. I build them — as solid as necessary, as fluid as possible.

My specialty: bringing people together through artifacts. A shooting schedule gets thirty people through a day, a report puts business and IT at one table — and this page turns a CV into a conversation. Screenplays and websites at the start, SQL, data models and my own Power BI visual today — those are only the ends of the journey. The core has stayed the same: understanding what needs to happen between people, and building the thing that makes it happen.

Call me Email CV (PDF, German)

At a Glance

 Overview

Today

Two part-time roles, one craft: data models that business departments actually use.

Data Warehouse Specialist

Supernova Groupsince

Part-time, Graz (hybrid). Planning, building and running a data warehouse (Power BI / Fabric, SQL, Python).

Data Analyst

Neurothsince

Part-time, Graz. Building data models and reports from a marketing perspective (Power BI / Fabric, SQL, Python) — and translating between business and technology.

 Overview

Eight Years at XAL

How does a systems analyst end up planning the company’s data model? Station by station.

Systems Analyst — Product Engineering & Product Management

XAL GmbH, Graz (lighting industry) –

  • Led the Power BI committee (2022/23): planned a new data-warehouse architecture on the Microsoft stack — two ERP systems, PIM and SharePoint as sources; models and reports in Excel and Power BI (SQL, SSAS); coordination of DWH changes via Azure DevOps.
  • Project lead for the introduction of the new EU energy labels (2020–2022).
  • Product owner of the in-house PIM (2016–2023; Django/Python/PostgreSQL; backend of the product website with more than 10,000 products).
  • Built and rolled out many small tools — Excel, Power BI, Power Automate, Power Apps, SharePoint, SmartSheet; and analogue: pin boards, cards, flip charts.
  • Organisational development of new roles and processes in product development (2016–2018).
 Overview

The Start-up

A year working for myself — and the fastest school I ever attended.

Founder

Forgetit.io –

Built a time-management app. An intense year in the start-up community — lean startup, agile, Kickstarter, social media. Grew out of the Gründungsgarage at the University of Graz.

 Overview

Education

Project management first, then seven years at the University of Graz — business studies, sociology, start-up garage — and finally teaching others.

University

University of Graz2008 – 2015

Business studies, sociology, start-up garage.

Getting in came first: the university entrance exam 2008 – 2010, taken without a school-leaving certificate. Then three semesters of business studies (2010 – 2011, 45 ECTS) and the move to sociology (2011 – 2014, exams worth 168 ECTS, no final thesis). Finally the Gründungsgarage at the Institute of Corporate Leadership and Entrepreneurship (2014 – 2015), where the iOS app “Forget it!” took shape — and led to founding Forgetit.io in 2015.

Generalist Project Manager

Activity2006 – 2007

Two-semester programme of 1,175 hours.

Systemic project management, NLP, plus basics in accounting, controlling, labour law and coaching.

Certificates

  • Certified Apprenticeship Trainer WIFI Styria, 2022
  • Professional Scrum Master I Scrum.org, 2015
  • IPMA Level D Activity, 2007
  • NLP Practitioner Activity, 2007
  • Paramedic Jägerbataillon 25, 2003

School

BORG Hasnerplatz1998 – 2002

MHS Ferdinandeum1994 – 1998

Engelsdorf Primary School1989 – 1994

Upper secondary school with a computer-science focus; a music middle school before that.

 Overview

Film (2003 – 2008)

Before data came film: five years in production, unit management and art department — project management under real-time conditions.  Filmography on Crew United

Production & Unit Management

Unit management means the shooting schedule is your product. Who stands where and when, whether catering arrives before the lunch scene, what happens when the lead is stuck in traffic — and the deadline is called wrap, every single evening. On the ORF documentaries I also planned whole productions; “Zwischen-Pass” was my own film, from script to cut.

Production Assistant

“Menschen & Mächte: Erzherzog Johann” — documentary, ORF; RAN-Film01 – 06/2008

Production Assistant

“Erlebnis Österreich: Der Schöckel” — documentary, ORF; RAN-Film09 – 12/2007

Director, Writer & Editor

“Zwischen-Pass” — my own short film06 – 09/2006

Assistant Unit Manager

“Oneline Life: Play Hard Go Pro” — documentary

Set Unit Manager & Art Department

“Jenseits” — feature film06 – 07/2005

Assistant Unit Manager

“Shiver: Stehst Du still” — music video

Assistant Unit Manager

“Wie Schnee hinter Glas” — short film

Art Department & Props

Started as an intern in interior props, at Bayerischer Rundfunk. The art department is the craft behind the picture: every object in the frame was put there by someone. You learn lists, logistics and an eye for what makes a scene believable. In the model only a quarter of these hours count as project management — carrying props is craft, not coordination.

Set Props

“Oben Ohne” — TV series, ORF; Star*Film

Set Props

“Novotny & Maroudi” — TV series, ORF08 – 09/2005

Set Decorator

“Heile Welt” — short film

Art-Department Internship, then Set Props

“8x45: Bis in den Tod” — TV series, ORF01 – 03/2005

Props Assistant (internship)

“In einem anderen Leben” — TV movie, BR12/2003 – 01/2004

 Overview

Skills

Stars are claims. That’s why every rating names its source — below, the same skills counted in hours; further down, book by book, station by station.

Line chart: cumulative hours per skill from 1994 to 2026, nine coloured curves and a dashed line at 10,000 hours that two curves cross
The same skills, calculated rather than claimed: an hour of learning counts as two hours of practice. Exactly two curves cross the line at 10,000 — the two with five stars. Drawn with ggpbi.

Project Management

Learned on film sets, where the schedule is the product and wrap is a daily deadline: thirty people, one plan, and when the weather turns, the whole day turns with it. Do that for a few years and you can manage projects before you ever use the word.

The theory came in 2006 — two semesters of systemic project management at Activity, IPMA Level D; the course also led to radical constructivism and, via Gareis, to business studies. Then Scrum at the startup, most recently the EU energy-label rollout at XAL: one project across the entire company.

Scrum & agile methods

· Why call sheets are project management

Organisation & Leadership

Business studies left a gap: between what the textbook says and what actually happens inside a company. The textbook runs to a thousand pages, and the gap isn’t in there. Mintzberg closed it — he describes management the way it looks when you watch it.

The practice came at XAL: organisational development in product development, product owner of the in-house PIM, the Power BI committee, certified apprenticeship trainer. Current trail: complexity science and the edge of chaos — how much order a company needs, and how much movement.

· Mintzberg and the textbook gap

Marketing & Startup

The fastest school of marketing: at the Gründungsgarage we designed an app nobody had asked for — when nobody buys, no theory will save you. The app became Forgetit, and Forgetit became two years of running a startup: lean startup, pitching, Kickstarter, social media.

Today I sit on the other side of the table: at Neuroth I build data models from the marketing perspective — the same questions, answered with data instead of gut feeling. This spring the theory caught up: Sharp’s “How Brands Grow”, Binet & Field.

· How the app became the school

Power BI, SQL & Data Models

Daily since 2016: star schemas, DAX, SSAS, Fabric — eight years of XAL, now Neuroth and Supernova, plus the Python backend of a product website with more than 10,000 products. The point of it all: data models that make the connections visible.

Books barely cover this field; what I know comes from doing it, and from the web — above all Guy in a Cube. One book stands out: Wilkinson’s “The Grammar of Graphics”. It became ggpbi, my own Power BI visual.

Data visualisation — ggpbi: the full piece

Python & SQL backends

· From three methods courses to ggpbi

Statistics

Almost all of it from university: the lectures, the exercise classes that went with them, later whatever the job calls for. The textbook is still on the shelf — Bamberg, Baur and Krapp, read in 2010, the business-studies year.

It’s a field where I know pretty precisely where my limits are — and I prefer that to a field where I don’t. Kahneman and Silver came much later, as context rather than foundation.

· Where the limit sits

Storytelling

The screenwriting books came before the films, not with them: Field, McKee, Aristotle, Mamet, Freud’s “Jokes” — all before 2003. First read, then shot: five years of film were the practice.

The thickest book in the column isn’t about writing at all — in 1,250 pages of “War and Peace”, Tolstoy runs a hundred characters without losing one. Today the craft builds reports that someone understands, and at best remembers. A dashboard is a story too, just shorter.

· What Tolstoy has to do with dashboards

AI in everyday work

The youngest field and the only one without a single book — no book could keep up. What I know comes from daily use: at work, at home, everywhere.

The learning happens on YouTube, in a pattern noticeably different from Power BI: there, one channel with eighty-three videos; here, many channels with two or three each. That’s what learning looks like before a field settles — you don’t subscribe, you observe.

· Learning faster than books

Sociology & Systems Theory

It started with a door-closer: in thirteen pages Latour describes how a piece of metal takes over a doorman’s job — after that, sociology stopped being a subject and became a lens. The trail before it: Chinese medicine and its thinking without cause and effect, then constructivism via the project-management course.

Three years of sociology at university, no degree — the lens stayed. Becker taught me how to write, Latour how to follow networks; complexity science is the current trail. Grown from the books, so it carries no stars: the shelf is the rating.

· The full door-closer story

Self-management & Productivity

Eight years of secondary school in a single year, alongside a job — the university entrance exam only works with a system, and “Getting Things Done” provided it. The second time was the startup: too little time for too much.

At the end of the XAL years came the Stoics, via audiobooks — Marcus Aurelius sits at the very top of my ranking, right next to Tolstoy. Two thousand years old, and closer to GTD than either side would admit. Also grown from the books — no stars.

· GTD meets Marcus Aurelius

Languages

German native

English fluent

French basic

 Overview

Interests

What I think about when nobody sets a deadline.

AI — private & everywhere

Deep into AI since 2023, professionally and privately — from prompting to the question of what the models are doing to our work.

Systems Theory

Gareis’ “Happy Projects!” kicked off my interest in systems theory. It was also the decisive reason to enrol in business studies — and later to switch to sociology.

 What I read

Actor-Network Theory

ANT is a sociological approach that describes how actors — human and non-human — are connected and influence each other.

 ANT on Wikipedia

Far-Eastern Theories

“The Web That Has No Weaver” showed me a lot about the holistic thinking of Asian theories. TCM and feng shui work fine without our cause-and-effect thinking.

Making Data Visible

My CV as a data model: timeline, competence curves, an interest budget — computed instead of claimed.

 The curves

Getting Things Done

GTD is a productivity technique by David Allen that turns chaos into orderly lists.

Hiking in the mountains with children

Hiking

Chess

  1. e2–e4 e7–e5
  2. f2–f4
 Overview

What I read

I am not what I read. But what someone reads says a lot about them.

So I tried to reconstruct which books shaped me — print and audio, going back to school days. And then asked the question you can only ask once they all lie side by side: which book gave the most for its pages?

THICK & POWERFULTHIN & POWERFULTHICK & QUIETTHIN & QUIETMixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer — Bruno Latour — read 2011Doing Gender — Candace West, Don H. Zimmerman — read 2012Die Gemütsruhe — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023The Long and the Short of It — Les Binet, Peter Field — read 2026Ein glückliches Leben — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023Die Kürze des Lebens — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023Die Kunst, sich selbst zu managen — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022Poetik — Aristoteles — read 2000Vom dreifachen Gebrauch des Messers — David Mamet — read 2001Die Kunst der Filmregie — David Mamet — read 2001Die Kunst des Krieges. Der Klassiker der Konfliktstrategie — Sun Tzu — read 2023Die fünf entscheidenden Fragen des Managements — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein — Paul Watzlawick — read 2006Philosophie der Stoa — Epiktet — read 2023Rebalancing Society — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Der Fürst — Niccolò Machiavelli — read 2023Wie wir uns erfinden. Eine Autobiographie des radikalen Konstruktivismus — Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld — read 2006Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners — Heinz von Foerster, Bernhard Pörksen — read 2006Archetypen — C. G. Jung — read 1999Einführung in den Konstruktivismus — Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Peter M. Hejl — read 2006Zhang Yimou und Wong Kar-Wai — Josef Schnelle, Rüdiger Suchsland — read 1997Grundkurs Filmanalyse — Werner Faulstich — read 2013Bedtime Stories for Managers — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Die Kunst des professionellen Schreibens — Howard S. Becker — read 2011Das Verschwinden der Kindheit — Neil Postman — read 2014The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday — read 2022Ego Is the Enemy — Ryan Holiday — read 2022How Brands Grow — Byron Sharp — read 2026Joel & Ethan Coen — Peter Körte, Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Quentin Tarantino — Robert Fischer, Peter Körte, Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Das Design der Gesellschaft — Stephan Moebius, Sophia Prinz — read 2015Beratung ohne Ratschlag — Sonja Radatz — read around 2018Abenteuer Change Management — Manfred Höfler — read around 2015Filme schreiben — Syd Field — read 2002Selbstbetrachtungen — Marc Aurel — read 2023(Fast) Alles einfach erklärt — Niklas Kolorz — read around 2019Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time — Jeff Sutherland, J. J. Sutherland — read 2014Getting Things Done — David Allen — read 2009Stillness Is the Key — Ryan Holiday — read 2023Parenting with a Story — Paul Smith — read 2016Drehbuchschreiben — Syd Field — read 2002Der Baum der Erkenntnis — Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela — read 2006Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten — Sigmund Freud — read 2002Roman eines Schicksallosen — Imre Kertész — read 2005Lead with a Story — Paul Smith — read 2016David Lynch und seine Filme — Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Mein letzter Seufzer — Luis Buñuel — read 1999Die große Verführung — Robert Levine — read 1999Deep Work — Cal Newport — read 2022Reassembling the Social — Bruno Latour — read 2012Managing — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Urban Assemblages — Ignacio Farías, Thomas Bender — read 2015The Mind Map Book — Tony Buzan, Barry Buzan — read 2009Statistik — Günter Bamberg, Franz Baur, Michael Krapp — read 2010The Leader's Guide to Radical Management — Stephen Denning — read 2015The Lean Startup — Eric Ries — read 2014The Leader's Guide to Storytelling — Stephen Denning — read 2015Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme — Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Käuferverhalten — Foscht, Swoboda — read 2010The Essential Drucker — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg — read 2022Art Worlds — Howard S. Becker — read 2014Elon Musk — Ashlee Vance — read 2022Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! — Miran Lipovača — read 2020Kinder brauchen Märchen — Bruno Bettelheim — read 200412 Rules for Life — Jordan B. Peterson — read 2022Das Prinzip Verantwortung — Hans Jonas — read 2012Mintzberg on Management — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Scale — Geoffrey West — read 2026Story — Robert McKee — read 2002Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman — read June 2026The Signal and the Noise — Nate Silver — read 2025Das große Buch der chinesischen Medizin — Ted J. Kaptchuk — read 2002The Tragedy of Great Power Politics — John J. Mearsheimer — read 2011Maps of Meaning — Jordan B. Peterson — read 2022Happy Projects! — Roland Gareis — read 2006Benjamin Franklin: An American Life — Walter Isaacson — read 2022Grundlagen des Managements — Schreyögg, Koch — read 2010Die Traumdeutung — Sigmund Freud — read 2005Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson — read 2022Einstein — Walter Isaacson — read 2022The Grammar of Graphics — Leland Wilkinson — read 2018Projektmanagement — Gerold Patzak, Günter Rattay — read 2006Einführung in die Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre — Günter Wöhe, Ulrich Döring — read 2010Soziologie — Anthony Giddens, Christian Fleck, Marianne Egger de Campo — read 2011Krieg und Frieden — Leo Tolstoi — read 2022Krieg und FriedenMixing Humans and Nonhumans Toge…SelbstbetrachtungenDas große Buch der chinesischen…ManagingWie wir uns erfinden. Eine Autob…Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum…ScaleDie TraumdeutungDer Baum der ErkenntnisWahrheit ist die Erfindung eines…Art WorldsDie Kunst des professionellen Sc…Reassembling the SocialHow Brands GrowthickthinLength →lowhighImportance →
  • Sociology
  • Philosophy & Stoicism
  • Management
  • Film & screenwriting
  • Systems thinking
  • Psychology
  • Data & technology
  • Literature & biography
Thick to thin from left to right, quiet to powerful from bottom to top, colour is the genre. Top right are the stars — big effect, few pages. Drawn with ggpbi.
200020052010201520202025Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer — Bruno Latour — read 2011Doing Gender — Candace West, Don H. Zimmerman — read 2012Die Gemütsruhe — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023The Long and the Short of It — Les Binet, Peter Field — read 2026Ein glückliches Leben — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023Die Kürze des Lebens — Lucius Annaeus Seneca — read 2023Die Kunst, sich selbst zu managen — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022Poetik — Aristoteles — read 2000Vom dreifachen Gebrauch des Messers — David Mamet — read 2001Die Kunst der Filmregie — David Mamet — read 2001Die Kunst des Krieges. Der Klassiker der Konfliktstrategie — Sun Tzu — read 2023Die fünf entscheidenden Fragen des Managements — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein — Paul Watzlawick — read 2006Philosophie der Stoa — Epiktet — read 2023Rebalancing Society — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Der Fürst — Niccolò Machiavelli — read 2023Wie wir uns erfinden. Eine Autobiographie des radikalen Konstruktivismus — Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld — read 2006Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners — Heinz von Foerster, Bernhard Pörksen — read 2006Archetypen — C. G. Jung — read 1999Einführung in den Konstruktivismus — Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Peter M. Hejl — read 2006Zhang Yimou und Wong Kar-Wai — Josef Schnelle, Rüdiger Suchsland — read 1997Grundkurs Filmanalyse — Werner Faulstich — read 2013Bedtime Stories for Managers — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Die Kunst des professionellen Schreibens — Howard S. Becker — read 2011Das Verschwinden der Kindheit — Neil Postman — read 2014The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday — read 2022Ego Is the Enemy — Ryan Holiday — read 2022How Brands Grow — Byron Sharp — read 2026Joel & Ethan Coen — Peter Körte, Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Quentin Tarantino — Robert Fischer, Peter Körte, Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Das Design der Gesellschaft — Stephan Moebius, Sophia Prinz — read 2015Beratung ohne Ratschlag — Sonja Radatz — read around 2018Abenteuer Change Management — Manfred Höfler — read around 2015Filme schreiben — Syd Field — read 2002Selbstbetrachtungen — Marc Aurel — read 2023(Fast) Alles einfach erklärt — Niklas Kolorz — read around 2019Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time — Jeff Sutherland, J. J. Sutherland — read 2014Getting Things Done — David Allen — read 2009Stillness Is the Key — Ryan Holiday — read 2023Parenting with a Story — Paul Smith — read 2016Drehbuchschreiben — Syd Field — read 2002Der Baum der Erkenntnis — Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela — read 2006Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten — Sigmund Freud — read 2002Roman eines Schicksallosen — Imre Kertész — read 2005Lead with a Story — Paul Smith — read 2016David Lynch und seine Filme — Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Mein letzter Seufzer — Luis Buñuel — read 1999Die große Verführung — Robert Levine — read 1999Deep Work — Cal Newport — read 2022Reassembling the Social — Bruno Latour — read 2012Managing — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Urban Assemblages — Ignacio Farías, Thomas Bender — read 2015The Mind Map Book — Tony Buzan, Barry Buzan — read 2009Statistik — Günter Bamberg, Franz Baur, Michael Krapp — read 2010The Leader's Guide to Radical Management — Stephen Denning — read 2015The Lean Startup — Eric Ries — read 2014The Leader's Guide to Storytelling — Stephen Denning — read 2015Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme — Georg Seeßlen — read 1997Käuferverhalten — Foscht, Swoboda — read 2010The Essential Drucker — Peter F. Drucker — read 2022The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg — read 2022Art Worlds — Howard S. Becker — read 2014Elon Musk — Ashlee Vance — read 2022Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! — Miran Lipovača — read 2020Kinder brauchen Märchen — Bruno Bettelheim — read 200412 Rules for Life — Jordan B. Peterson — read 2022Das Prinzip Verantwortung — Hans Jonas — read 2012Mintzberg on Management — Henry Mintzberg — read 2018Scale — Geoffrey West — read 2026Story — Robert McKee — read 2002Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman — read June 2026The Signal and the Noise — Nate Silver — read 2025Das große Buch der chinesischen Medizin — Ted J. Kaptchuk — read 2002The Tragedy of Great Power Politics — John J. Mearsheimer — read 2011Maps of Meaning — Jordan B. Peterson — read 2022Happy Projects! — Roland Gareis — read 2006Benjamin Franklin: An American Life — Walter Isaacson — read 2022Grundlagen des Managements — Schreyögg, Koch — read 2010Die Traumdeutung — Sigmund Freud — read 2005Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson — read 2022Einstein — Walter Isaacson — read 2022The Grammar of Graphics — Leland Wilkinson — read 2018Projektmanagement — Gerold Patzak, Günter Rattay — read 2006Einführung in die Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre — Günter Wöhe, Ulrich Döring — read 2010Soziologie — Anthony Giddens, Christian Fleck, Marianne Egger de Campo — read 2011Krieg und Frieden — Leo Tolstoi — read 2022Krieg und FriedenMixing Humans and Nonhumans…SelbstbetrachtungenDas große Buch der chinesisc…ManagingWie wir uns erfinden. Eine A…Der Witz und seine Beziehung…ScaleDie TraumdeutungDer Baum der ErkenntnisWahrheit ist die Erfindung e…Art WorldsDie Kunst des professionelle…Reassembling the SocialHow Brands GrowYear read →lowhighImportance →
The same books, with the year read across instead of the page count: screenwriting before 2003, constructivism around 2010, the Stoics after 2020.

What the books set off

 Overview

Always theory-driven: it began with American screenwriting theory, built on Aristotle’s Poetics — then systems theory and Asian classics, then actor-network theory, Mintzberg, lately complexity science. The mix fits wherever people are connected through artifacts. Here’s the journey — skipping allowed.

Storytelling

The screenwriting books came before the films, not with them: Field, McKee, Aristotle, Mamet, Freud's "Jokes" — all before my military service in 2003. First read, then shot. Five years of film were the practice.

The thickest book in this column isn't about writing at all: "War and Peace". In 1,250 pages Tolstoy shows how to run a hundred characters without losing a single one.

Today the craft serves something else: building a report that someone understands — and, at best, remembers. A dashboard is a story too, just shorter.

Stations

Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Founder — Forgetit.io, Sociology studies, Gründungsgarage — Designing an iOS App (“Forget it!”), University Entrance Qualification, Ferdinandeum Music Middle School, BORG Hasnerplatz — Computer Science Branch

Books

Krieg und Frieden, Story, Poetik, Die Kunst der Filmregie, Die Traumdeutung, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten, Drehbuchschreiben, Roman eines Schicksallosen, Die Kunst des professionellen Schreibens, Kinder brauchen Märchen, David Lynch und seine Filme, Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme, Quentin Tarantino, Mein letzter Seufzer, Bedtime Stories for Managers, Filme schreiben, Grundkurs Filmanalyse, Joel & Ethan Coen, Vom dreifachen Gebrauch des Messers, The Leader's Guide to Storytelling, Lead with a Story, Parenting with a Story, Archetypen, Zhang Yimou und Wong Kar-Wai, The Leader's Guide to Radical Management

The five film years

Project Management

My first project wasn't called a project. On a film set it's called the call sheet: thirty people, one shooting schedule, and when the weather turns, the whole day turns with it. Do that for a few years and you can manage projects before you ever use the word.

The theory came in 2006: two semesters of systemic project management at Activity, IPMA Level D. The course gave me more than the certificate — it led me to radical constructivism, and Gareis' "Happy Projects!" is why I enrolled in business studies. Then Scrum at the startup, and most recently the EU energy-label rollout at XAL — one project cutting across the entire company.

Stations

Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Generalist Project Manager, Founder — Forgetit.io, Director, Writer & Editor — “Zwischen-Pass” (short film), Production Assistant — “Menschen & Mächte: Erzherzog Johann” (documentary, ORF), Production Assistant — “Erlebnis Österreich: Der Schöckel” (documentary, ORF), Art Department Internship — “8x45: Bis in den Tod” (TV series, ORF), Military Service — Paramedic, Props Assistant — “In einem anderen Leben” (TV movie, BR), Assistant Unit Manager — “Wie Schnee hinter Glas” (short film), Assistant Unit Manager — “Shiver: Stehst Du still” (music video), Set Unit Manager & Art Department — “Jenseits” (feature film), Standby Props — “Novotny & Maroudi” (TV series, ORF), Assistant Unit Manager — “Oneline Life: Play Hard Go Pro” (documentary), Professional Scrum Master I, Standby Props — “8x45: Bis in den Tod” (TV series, ORF), Set Decorator — “Heile Welt” (short film), Standby Props — “Oben Ohne” (TV series, ORF), Production Support

Books

Projektmanagement, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, Happy Projects!, The Lean Startup

The Activity programme

Self-management & Productivity

Most of it I learned during the Studienberechtigungsprüfung, Austria's university entrance exam: eight years of secondary school in a single year, alongside a job. That only works with a system — mine came out of "Getting Things Done" back then.

The second time was the startup years, for the same reason: too little time for too much. And at the end of the XAL years came the Stoics, through the audiobooks — Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" sits at the very top of my ranking, right next to Tolstoy. Two thousand years old, and closer to GTD than either side would admit.

Stations

University Entrance Qualification, Founder — Forgetit.io, Gründungsgarage — Designing an iOS App (“Forget it!”)

Books

Selbstbetrachtungen, Getting Things Done, Stillness Is the Key, Ego Is the Enemy, The Mind Map Book, The Obstacle Is the Way, Philosophie der Stoa, Ein glückliches Leben, Die Kürze des Lebens, Die Gemütsruhe, The Power of Habit, Deep Work, Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein, Die Kunst, sich selbst zu managen

The university entrance exam

Marketing & Startup

At the Gründungsgarage we designed an app nobody had asked for. It's the fastest school of marketing I know: when nobody buys, no theory will save you.

The app became Forgetit, and Forgetit became two years of running a startup. Today I sit on the other side of the table: at Neuroth I build data models from the marketing perspective — the same questions, only now I answer them with data instead of gut feeling.

Stations

Gründungsgarage — Designing an iOS App (“Forget it!”), Founder — Forgetit.io, Data Analyst, Sociology studies, Business Administration (first three semesters), BORG Hasnerplatz — Computer Science Branch

Books

How Brands Grow, The Long and the Short of It, Steve Jobs, Die große Verführung, Einführung in die Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre, The Lean Startup, Käuferverhalten

The startup

Statistics

Almost all of it comes from university: the lectures, the exercise classes that went with them, later whatever the job called for.

It's a field where I know pretty precisely where my limits are — and I prefer that to a field where I don't. Kahneman and Silver came much later, as context, not as foundation.

Stations

Sociology studies, University Entrance Qualification, Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Business Administration (first three semesters), Data Analyst

Books

Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Signal and the Noise, Statistik

Sociology & Systems Theory

It started with a door-closer. In thirteen pages Latour describes how a piece of metal takes over a doorman's job — after that, sociology stopped being a subject for me and became a lens.

The trail before it: Kaptchuk's book on Chinese medicine, read before my military service. TCM works without our cause-and-effect thinking — my first contact with holistic thought. Radical constructivism came later, through the project-management course: Foerster, Maturana, Watzlawick.

I studied sociology from 2011 to 2014, no degree — the lens stayed. Becker taught me how to write professionally, Latour how to follow networks, and West is currently checking the maths on whether cities are organisms.

Stations

Sociology studies

Books

Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer, Das große Buch der chinesischen Medizin, Wie wir uns erfinden. Eine Autobiographie des radikalen Konstruktivismus, Der Baum der Erkenntnis, Art Worlds, Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners, Reassembling the Social, Das Verschwinden der Kindheit, Die Traumdeutung, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten, Scale, Die Kunst des professionellen Schreibens, Einführung in den Konstruktivismus, Doing Gender, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Happy Projects!, Die große Verführung, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Das Design der Gesellschaft, Soziologie, Rebalancing Society, Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein, Maps of Meaning, 12 Rules for Life, Das Prinzip Verantwortung, Archetypen, Urban Assemblages, Beratung ohne Ratschlag

What I read

Organisation & Leadership

My business degree left me with a gap: between what the textbook says and what actually happens inside a company. The textbook runs to a thousand pages, and the gap isn't in there.

That's exactly why I read Mintzberg in 2018 — he describes management the way it looks when you watch it, not the way it's supposed to look. Before that, in the move from the startup to XAL, I had read my way into organisational development.

The next layer of this is complexity science — more on that below, at the end of the path.

Stations

Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Sociology studies, Business Administration (first three semesters), University Entrance Qualification, Props Assistant — “In einem anderen Leben” (TV movie, BR), Certified Apprenticeship Trainer

Books

Managing, Mintzberg on Management, Scale, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, The Essential Drucker, Bedtime Stories for Managers, Abenteuer Change Management, Die fünf entscheidenden Fragen des Managements, Rebalancing Society, Der Fürst, Die Kunst des Krieges. Der Klassiker der Konfliktstrategie, Grundlagen des Managements, Beratung ohne Ratschlag, Die Kunst, sich selbst zu managen, The Leader's Guide to Radical Management

Eight years of XAL

Power BI, SQL & Data Models

The theory came from three methods courses in my sociology degree. Sounds like little, but it was exactly the right thing: preparing data, analysing it, presenting it — on real questions, not textbook examples.

Everything else came on the job. Daily since 2016: star schemas, DAX, SSAS models, report design — eight years of XAL, now Neuroth and Supernova. The point of all of it: data models that make the connections visible. Books barely cover this field; what I know about Power BI comes from doing it, and from the web — above all Guy in a Cube.

One book stands out: Wilkinson's "The Grammar of Graphics". It became ggpbi — my own visual, down in the projects.

Stations

Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Data Analyst, Sociology studies, Data Warehouse Specialist

Books

Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!, The Grammar of Graphics, The Signal and the Noise, (Fast) Alles einfach erklärt

YouTube

YouTube — Power BI, Fabric & data 2024, YouTube — Power BI, Fabric & data 2025, YouTube — Power BI, Fabric & data 2023, YouTube — Power BI, Fabric & data 2026

ggpbi — the full article

AI in everyday work

The youngest field, and the only one without a single book — no book could keep up.

What I know comes from daily use: at work, at home, everywhere. Plus YouTube, in a pattern noticeably different from Power BI: there, one channel with eighty-three videos; here, many channels with two or three each. That's what learning looks like before a field settles — you don't subscribe, you observe.

Stations

Systems Analyst | Product Engineering & Product Management, Data Analyst, AI — private & everywhere, Data Warehouse Specialist

YouTube

YouTube — AI & development 2026, YouTube — AI & development 2025, YouTube — AI & development 2024

The steepest curve in the chart

Complexitythe current trail

Where things are heading right now: complexity science. I read West's "Scale" this spring — scaling laws that hold for organisms, cities and companies alike. A mouse, a city and a corporation follow the same curves, just with different exponents.

What grips me is the edge of chaos in organisations: the zone between order and chaos where a system is most adaptable. Too much order and nothing moves. Too much chaos and nothing holds.

This is where the threads from above come together: systems theory from sociology, Mintzberg's view of organisations — and the data you'd need to measure it one day. Maybe that's the next phase. The books are already piling up.

Feeds into: Sociology & Systems Theory · Organisation & Leadership

Scale in the book scatter
 Overview

Projects

What gets built when nobody sets a deadline.

ggpbi logo

ggpbi — Grammar of Graphics for Power BI

My own open-source project · TypeScript & D3 · MIT licence · github.com/efelcie/ggpbi · Last updated

ggpbi is an open-source Power BI visual that brings the Grammar of Graphics from ggplot2 to Power BI — written in TypeScript and D3, with no R or Python runtime.

Power BI ships a fixed list of chart types. Anyone who needs something else reaches for an R or Python visual — those need an installed runtime and end up delivering an image: no cross-filtering, no native tooltips.

ggpbi takes the other route. It brings the grammar of ggplot2 to Power BI — fields map to aesthetics, geoms stack as layers — but as a native TypeScript/D3 visual. No runtime, no R, no Python. It renders as fast as any built-in visual and works in the Power BI Service.

Screenshot of Power BI Desktop: three ggpbi visuals on the iris data set — scatter plot, density curves per species and box plots — in one report
Three ggpbi visuals in one report, on the iris data set: scatter plot, density curves per species, box plots. Cross-filtering and tooltips like any built-in visual — no R, no Python, no runtime.

A report like this is built by dropping fields into wells; the Format Pane writes the ggpbi chain from them. And the other way round: since version 0.5 the code view is a real editor, with an optional vim mode. What you change there writes back into the Format Pane — editor and pane are two doors into the same room. The editor speaks three languages: the ggpbi chain, ggplot2 in R, and ggpbir, the report’s JSON format.

And outside Power BI

ggpbi is an ES module with D3 underneath — Power BI is one of the places it runs, not the only one. Both charts on this page are drawn with it: the hours up in the skills section and the book matrix. And really with it — the code below is exactly what draws them, not a simplified example. The library loads only after the page is up; until then a static SVG stands in — and stays put if anything goes wrong. 

ggpbi()                       // the hours
  .data(hours)                // 2 x learning + practice
  .aes({ x: 'Jahr', y: 'Gewichtet',
         color: 'Skills' })
  .geom('hline', { yintercept: 10000,
                   linetype: 'dashed' })
  .geom('line', { size: 2 })
  .size(640, 400)
  .renderTo(element);
ggpbi()                       // the books
  .data(books)
  .aes({ x: 'Umfang', y: 'Wirkung',
         color: 'Genre', label: 'Titelkurz' })
  .scale({ x: { labels: () => '' },
           y: { labels: () => '' } })   // no ticks
  .geom('point', { size: 4, alpha: 0.72 })
  .tooltip({ fields: ['Titel','Autor','Gelesen'] })
  .geom('text', { repel: true, size: 10 })
  .geom('vline', { xintercept: middle })
  .renderTo(element);
Two charts, the same chain. ggpbi drops empty labels — which is why only the fifteen most important books carry a title, and repel pushes them apart until none covers another.

What’s in it

Geoms: point, line, bar, col, area, text, boxplot, violin, histogram, density, smooth (lm, loess, moving average), segment, pointrange, plus the reference lines hline, vline and abline.

Grammar: aesthetics (x, y, color, fill, size, shape, alpha, group, label), positions (identity, stack, dodge, fill, jitter), scales (linear, log, sqrt, time, category) with locale-aware number and date formats, faceting by row and column, and gghighlight-style highlighting.

Power BI native: cross-filtering by click, native tooltips, context menu, report themes, high-contrast mode and style presets.

Two fields are enough to start: one in X, one in Y. ggpbi picks the geom from the scale types — number and number give a scatter plot, category and number a bar chart, date and number a line, a number on its own a histogram.

Status: version 0.5.0 — about 16,000 lines of TypeScript across 51 modules, 67 test files. Not on AppSource yet; it installs by file import in Power BI Desktop.

I ported the same core — scales, axes, label engine — to Elm, to see what survives of the grammar when the compiler flags every gap. The chart above is the TypeScript version.

Contact

Scrolled all the way down? Then we should talk.

+43 664 5057058 mail@peter.flucher.name LinkedIn GitHub

Personal Information

Date of birth

Based in 8073 Feldkirchen bei Graz

Country Austria

Contact

Email mail@peter.flucher.name

Phone +43 664 5057058

Website peter.flucher.name

Online

LinkedIn

github.com/efelcie