South Florida Pmi Presentation 2011 Short

Presentation Title

Overview• This presentation is a version of the deck I presented to the Broward and Palm Beach PMI Chapters in

mid 2011• I was invited to be a guest speaker after several members read an article in PMI Magazine called “Hail

to the Chief” where I was interviewed about my practices around technical project management• I was asked to speak about a the CPO role of which my current duties have a large degree of overlap.

In order to understand that role you have to first understand how we do project management in Risk.• Key takeaways: simplicity, lite process, relationship between culture and process, smart people not

smart process.• This was designed as a guideline/framework for my speech so it may be a bit dry; if you have questions

let me know or refer to the PMI Magazine article.

CPO: The latest “C” Level Executive in the BoardroomDave Glowacki, VP LexisNexis Risk Solutions Product Engineering

June 9, 2011

3CPO: The latest “C” Level Executive in the Boardroom

• Provider of risk-related information and analytics with leading positions in insurance, financial services, corporate, government, and screening, as well as legal markets. Subsidiary of Reed Elsevier in New York.

• $1.4bn revenues with 4,000 employees, headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia. 500 employees in Boca Raton

• Most comprehensive database of public record information in the US, with 34bn public records, significant contributory databases, and market-leading technology and proprietary analytics

• Industry-leading privacy policies and practices

What is LexisNexis Risk Solutions?

• Reduce risk and improve performance in critical business processes through more informed decisions on customers, suppliers and employees

• Prevent fraud and ensure regulatory compliance

• Create safer society by making it faster and easier to identify, locate and investigate criminals and terrorists

• Accelerate revenue by streamlining customer workflows

• Increase operational efficiency


• I am responsible for Screening Solutions Engineering, Enterprise Services Platform(ESP, middleware) Engineering and Engineering Project Management(PMO)

• Engineering Project Management – 25 project managers, 451 projects in 2010, 91.2% delivery within two weeks of baseline. Average project duration after requirements – 78 days. We serve seven distinct markets. Tools, MS Project, Quickbase & SharePoint

• Goal: I hope you find some nuggets of information from today's presentation that may help you in your current role or future goals.

Who am I and what am I responsible for?

• I am a programming engineer at heart, but have PMO responsibility. Probably not your typical PMO leader. Software engineering background, for profit, software and content as a profit center.

• I currently reside within Engineering and manage both engineers and Engineering Project Management.

• I have managed both highly structured and unstructured project organizations.

• I currently manage 104 employees: 55 engineers, 25 project managers, 10 managers, 9 business analysts, 5 network support and ops engineers.


• Process Impacts/Influences Culture! Second only to leadership it is the most significant influence.

• Know your culture and whether you want to protect it or change it.

• Some key drivers in project management process that influence culture: How you make commitments, how you change commitments, and how you plan.

• Do you consider culture as you grow and change?

Project Management: Process and Culture

• Our Culture: We are fast and innovative, we believe in “Smart People not Smart Process”.

• We protect the culture we have, every decision we make is balanced against our culture.

• Our commitment model reflects our culture

• Our Engineering managers are the key to our success.

• We believe in “lite” process. Our project managers our experts in managing relationships.

CultureCultureLeaders People


1. Commitment Model

• Quarter plus a quarter –concept/preliminary requirement

• Month plus a month – requirements/design

• Day plus or minus two weeks

2. Roadmaps/Portfolio Management

• Simple view, easy to read easy to align with strategy

• Constantly clarifies commitment – stay way ahead

3. Annual Planning

• Establish a baseline as far in the future as possible.

• All other process goes to managing changes in the baseline

4. PFUD – PMO Motto

• Partner, Focus, Urgency, Deliver

Our Process

• Supports Innovation

• Greater accuracy not material, potentially expensive to be more accurate. Some exceptions.

• Supports iterative development and small release cycles

Go FastGo Fast

Culture

• Clear alignment between business and PMO

• Simple – Entire Portfolio on 10 pages or less

• Manage commitments way ahead of time

• Solid ground from which to work

• Annual expectations managed

• We Partner with the business and engineering

• We bring Focus to the chaos

• We create a sense of Urgency

• We DELIVER!


What does the industry say a CPO does?Oversee RFP Submission

Manage Contractor Relationships

Set Profit Objectives for Projects

Rank Sales Opportunities

Project Management Implementations

Compliance

Key Performance Metrics

Governance toward Goals/Strategy

Strategic Plan Development

Resource Allocation

CPO: What is it?

What do I think the challenges are?

• Successfully managing overlap with COO, CFO, CEO, CMO, CTO, CIO

• Strategic alignment with rest of Organization. Cross organization alignment and tradeoffs

• Investment alignment, initially and on-going

• Dual focus, short term and long term, strategic and tactical

• Having enough detail & feedback to guide the ship

CPO’s often carry a unique combination of skills that span several disciplines. They must be capable of financial analysis, of managing risk, of structuring an organization to produce a particular result, of marrying business requirements with process and tool functionality.


Things a CPO has to do well:1. Portfolio Management

• Right projects at the right time• Align strategy with the portfolio• High risk versus safe bet projects• Capacity & capacity gaps• Tradeoffs within the portfolio• Annual planning – multi-year plan• Ability to consistently forecast

2. Program/Project Level Management• Coordinate multiple projects• Insure projects meet business need• Effective delivery, tactical management• Clear commitment model• Effective communication

CPO Core Practices

3. Evolve and Influence the “Process”• Insure the process evolves with the need• Balance culture and various needs to

guide the ship

4. Influence “C” level peers – The Boardroom• Overcome natural competition/overlap• Priority decisions• Investment decisions


1. Portfolio Management• Roadmaps are the portfolio• Annual Planning simply forecasts

beyond the current roadmap• We gather prioritized projects from all

business units…..draw down forecast.• Gaps identified during annual

forecasting

2. Program/Project Level Management• Coordinate multiple projects• Insure projects meet business need• Effective delivery, tactical management• Clear commitment model• Effective communication

Tying it Back to What I Do

3. Evolve and Influence the “Process”• Balance decisions, I make process change

recommendations and/or execute change

• PFUD – Partner, Focus, Urgency, Delivery

4. Influence “C” level peers• Participant in strategy development• Aware of changing market conditions• Influence investment, tradeoff and

process decisions – set the table


1. Establish a Baseline Roadmap.• Determine how you will organize it, by quarter,

by business, align to strategy• Collect all project requests and brief

description including priority – should align with strategy.

• Restrict to larger more strategic projects..keep simple

• Separate process for small stuff

2. Forecast• Many ways to do this, we use a draw down

method, accuracy +- quarter.• Make any adjustments identify and resolve

gaps

How to manage a portfolio

3. Manage the Plan/RoadmapsNPR –New Project Request Process – “The control

valve”• Enough description for engineering to size• Initial Legal/Security approval• Priority• Desired Delivery Date- determines impact assessmentManage Upstream Activities Keep the business ahead of engineering• Requirements especially, move forecast if needed• Always refining forecasts, stay two quarters ahead at

least• Project – daily interactions – align project managers• Program – bi-monthly – align program managers• Portfolio – monthly – senior business leaders


Your Questions

LexisNexis Risk Solutions

South Florida Pmi Presentation 2011 Short

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culture cpo

project management process

project managers

process cpo

engineering managers

ms project

technical project management

smart process