Years of experience
More than two decades integrating linear detail-oriented project planning with brainstorming critical paths in order to meet project deadlines.
Facts about me
Multi-faceted skill-set; strong work ethic; self-starter; strategic thinker; systematic problem solver; passionate about team communication; calculated risk-taker; vetted project scheduler; highly certified and trained; inspired by the power of laughter to bring people together.
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B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Colorado
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M.B.A. in Operations Management, University of Colorado
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Constraints Management Practitioner (Theory of Constraints, Critical Chain, Jonah Certification)
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SCHEDULE DEVELOPMENT: tailored schedules and reporting tools, develop customized schedule methodology for your environment, emphasize slack and margin management for focused prioritization, execution, and reporting
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SCHEDULE REPORTING: generate top level/summary schedules for 1-pager views exported into PowerPoint, create key milestone and deliverable tracking reports and schedule margin performance charts, customize views/filters/sorts to clarify and highlight evolving critical paths
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SCHEDULE FORENSICS: analysis to determine root cause for delays in schedule, performed on supplier schedules or client schedules, present discovery in graphical and tabular formats
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SCHEDULE Rx: project plan re-baseline efforts, cleanup/organize master schedule, schedule file corruption recovery
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SCHEDULE TRAINING & SUPPORT: train to transition schedules and reports to internal team member(s), continuing training and support as required, Microsoft Project support “hotline” via voice or email
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SOFTWARE SUPPORTED: Microsoft Project, Milestones Pro, OnePager Pro, Smartsheet, FastTrack, Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
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NOTES: on-site and remote support is available, travel is welcome
01
Clarity
What do you have time for as a project manager, watching and worrying about 100 different tasks? Or always knowing those few tasks you should be focusing on that are critically delaying your project? There are two ways to manage a project schedule: task performance or slack/margin performance. Clarity and focus do not come from efficiently managing the 100s or 1000s of individual tasks in your project plan. Rather, effective schedule management focuses on the relationship between each task and the project objectives. Creating these relationships (ie, links) allows management of slack (float) in the schedule. Consequently, if I am managing my project with slack instead of individual task dates, I can manage 100 things by looking at one thing. Clear schedule reporting tools and metrics can provide everyone with a simplified list in the order of importance of which task should be focused on next to gain the most leverage.
02
Customization
I am not about wielding my All-Knowing Book of Scheduling and beating you over the head with it, telling you how you need to do project planning. While I do offer many years of experience and plenty of template approaches to project planning, I am more about listening to your particular situation and providing you with many different ways to look at scheduling. The goal in every environment is to produce simple intuitive reports and one-page pictures to depict what may be a very complicated project schedule behind the scenes. Part of my success is achieved when each person understands project planning by relating to one of many schedule views available: some people prefer data, others relate to pictures or analogy, some like Gantt charts and others like PERT or network views. Everyone can benefit from understanding schedule information, enabling clear priorities, facilitating decisions, and minimizing overwhelm. Even if your environment requires that you manage with EVM (Earned Value Management), there are focused ways to implement EVM. You can adhere to the EVM rules and not hamstring your team, chasing variance analysis at the task level while critical path analysis takes the unfortunate back seat.
03
Communication
Management determines (intentionally or otherwise) the behavior of the project team. We can strive for a highly collaborative environment, incentivizing the rapid exchange of ideas and designing out dysfunctional behavior. Alternatively, we can give people every reason to hide information and protect their areas of interest. There are several layers to successfully managing schedule on a project: 1. Set clear goals for the project, clarify roles and responsibilities, then put the plan together by gathering inputs from everyone about what’s needed to get each task done. 2. Use the schedule to manage the project on a weekly (or sometimes monthly) basis, clarifying actions and driving effective decisions. 3. Create an environment where people are incentivized to do what’s good for the project plan as a whole, and disincentivized to take actions that would protect their specific area. Schedule reporting tools and metrics can clarify these actions. When managing schedule in such an environment, resources can be moved around freely to help those on the critical tasks, without the concern that while they temporarily set aside their own tasks, something 'bad' will happen to them. It is known and understood that taking this systemic approach is what’s best for the project.