Following his studies in sinology, philosophy, and linguistics at the University of Cologne, Tillman took a position with nextpractice GmbH, a methods and consulting company in Bremen. There, he gained his first experience with data-based organizational analysis as well as method-supported agile organizational development and change processes. He also discovered his passion for organizational psychology, self-organization theory, and systems theory. This led him to systematically pursue further training, eventually including a Master of Science degree in industrial psychology with a focus on employee development, which he pursued part-time while working full-time. As part of his freelance activities, he worked with a number of companies as a moderator as they went through the cultural transformation that accompanies mergers and acquisitions. In his position as (senior) project leader at the marketing research and consulting institute september Strategie & Forschung GmbH, he supported numerous agile product development processes, using methods such as Design Thinking. He expanded both his procedural skills as well as his methodological capabilities in the area of depth-psychological approaches to verbal communication, moderation techniques, statistical analysis and modelling, as well as psychophysiological methods of measurement and assessment.