Bio
I am an engineer and psychologist with a PhD in Psychometrics (applied statistics). I currently work as a Data Analytics Team Lead at Deutsche Bahn (German Railway Company). Some of my previous employments were as Data Analyst at Staples, many analytics consultancy gigs as a freelancer, researcher and lecturer for methods and statistics at the Department of Psychology at Bremen University.
On this site I keep a list of published software, academic papers and presentations, as well as a blog with technical and general posts.
Technology and tools I use in my work:
Python R SQL Tableau Docker git AWS linux shell ansible Excel HTML JavaScript CSS Django Asana JIRA Confluence RStudio VS Code DBeaver Zotero
Selected Projects
Software
OpenRepGrid | Tools to Analyze Repertory Grid Data
gridsampler | A Sample Size Simulation Tool for Multiple Grid Studies
Business
Culturetools – A company I co-founded that helps organizations explore and develop their corporate culture
talkingdata – A visualization and reporting service focusing on survey data
Initiative Pflege Stärken – Advising care homes, nurturing healthy, resilient organisations and resident well-being.
Research
Heckmann, M. (2025). A probabilistic construct elicitation model and its implications for grid statistics. Journal of Constructivist Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2025.2582487
Heckmann, M. (2024). OpenRepGrid: An R Package for the analysis of repertory grid data. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(104), 6918, https://doi.org/
10.21105/ [PDF]joss.06918 Bundtzen, H., Heckmann, M., & Hinrichs, G. (2021). A constructivist approach to visualise organisational agility. Business Ethics and Leadership, 5(2), 96–106. https://doi.org/
10.21272/ [PDF]bel.5(2).96-106.2021
Videos
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – Über die Erfassung von Team- und Organisationskultur [Talk held at the Rethink HR Tech Conference 2021, 05.05.2021 (online)]. [PDF] [Video]
An extension of procrustes analysis to aggregate idiographic attribute datasets [Talk held at the 21th International Congress of the Personal Construct Psychology (ICPCP)]. [Video]