Meet our Visma competence ninjas: Carlos Canales

In an organisation the size of Visma, how can employees get in contact with each other, learn from each other and exchange ideas? Our answer to that question is the Ninja role. In this interview series, you will meet several of our competence ninjas. First up is Carlos Canales, Group Manager in Visma Enterprise AS.

But first: What is a Visma competence ninja? A ninja is a mentor to others and can be contacted by anyone within the organisation. Wondering on how to improve your scrum process or how to solve your bug in Tableau? The ninjas are here to help.

Get to know: Carlos Canales

Job title: Group Manager

Visma company: Visma Enterprise AS

What competence area can you help others with? Business Intelligence (BI)?

What is your background?

Finance & Economics, though I have worked with BI & Analytics for the past 15 years.?

Why did you become a ninja?

Because I am passionate about sharing domain knowledge - and more so - helping others succeed.

What do you enjoy the most being a ninja?

Finding together with colleagues that "Aha!" moment, when solving a challenge and creating awareness about the great team I work with from Visma Labs Latvia.?

Can you mention one challenge that you have helped someone solve?

These days I will be sharing experience with some colleagues from the Operations & Monitoring team on data visualization to measure Visma Cloud Delivery performance - they call the collaboration “Awesome Reporting” :)

What does a typical workday look like for you?

Before joining a daily stand-up meeting with my team, I quickly go through key systems and message boards to see if there are any critical incidents that may affect the cloud service we are responsible for.?

Between meetings and correspondences (yes many channels), I try to take pauses and see the big picture of what we do and where our next strategic milestone is - so I depict ideas in action tasks. Then try to get done with important administrative tasks towards the end of the workday.

I have daily video calls with my colleagues from Riga and that’s very engaging. And now that I work from the office a couple of days a week, I also enjoy playing ping-pong and having real-life lunch with colleagues!

Why do you believe it's important to have a culture for knowledge-sharing at Visma?

When we share knowledge we are essentially adding an exponential effect to our experience and ideas. It is a collective benefit from which we all rise as it gets embedded in the culture of our organisation.??

What are the main benefits of collaborating across companies and disciplines?

Visma acquires new companies at an unprecedented rate, so collaborating across companies - especially the new ones in the Visma family - is like extending a hand to a new classmate at school. You create solid and long-lasting bonds with cross-company collaboration.?

In my view, cross-discipline collaboration fosters innovation because your ideas and knowledge are exposed to completely different frames of reference. New projects and services emerge when we blend different perspectives.

Tell us a little bit more about why you enjoy being part of the ninja programme?

The programme is led by a discipline lead who actively shares knowledge and coordinates activities. This, together with challenges you are given every now and then, gives you a sense of continuous training in the subject you enjoy the most.

It is like being in a sports team and “staying in shape” along the way. But ultimately, for me, the true retribution comes when I am able to help other colleagues or teams succeed in their work!?

Interested in learning more about what it's like to work at Visma? Visit our blog category page Visma Life , and check out our career pages .