Welcome to my Web Site

Thank you for visiting my web site. I am a technical manager with over 25 years of experience. I have held a wide range of positions in my career, ranging from technical sales, customer service, marketing, software development, project management, business analysis and people manager. Using this site I will be sharing my background and history, and current topics I'm following, and perhaps some of my thoughts about those topics.

It´s been a while since I´ve updated anything here. I´m now working as a project manager at a large multi state hospital system. I´ve been doing some interesting and exciting work regarding keeping up to date on the federal meaningful use regulations from CMS, regional extension center programs, and managing some patient portal projects. Just recently I did some work around accountable care organizations (ACO), which is where the healthcare industry seems to be heading. I think this is a good thing, but its going to take a while, and a lot of work to change how the current business models work. Moving from service/volume oriented care delivery, to quality care and outcome metrics is a significant change to make. Interesting stuff.

The About Me page contains my background, history and professional resume, and the Contact Me page provides a way to send me a message without needing my email address.

Current Events

I came across an interesting article in the monthly PMI magazine. Written by Neal Whitten of The Neal Whitten Group. These are great tips on how to be an effective leader. Very reassuring to see that I've practiced most of these. Nice to have someone do such a great job articulating these concepts. So, hopefully by giving him credit, I can share these here with you without breaking any laws?

First Steps

by Neal Whitten

Walk around.
You will discover and resolve more problems by getting out and engaging with team members and other stakeholders rather than operating primarily from behind a desk.
Resolve conflicts.
Confront any problems professionally and in a timely manner so they don´t fester and harm the project.
Trust, but verify.
Strive to build trust among project stakeholders, but insist on metrics, checks and balances and other tools to ensure outcomes are being met.
Question the status quo.
Challenge practices, processes and methodologies. And when it´s needed, change them to yield better business outcomes.
Get out of the way.
As the project´s overall leader, you shouldn´t be tied down in its critical path. Instead, you must be accessible to help those members in need.
Don´t make it personal.
It´s just business; behave in the best interests of the business.
Don´t run the project by consensus.
Collaboration is important, but it´s your job to make sure the best approach is always chosen.
Celebrate successes.
Mark a major milestone with team members every three months at least. It shows that you care and appreciate their work.
Manage to your top three problems.
Predominately focus on managing to the most important and urgent issues every day. Your overall effectiveness here has a direct bearing on the success of your project—and your career.
It´s about results.
Effort is important, but results are essential.
Make your boss look good.
As a project manager, you have two bosses: your immediate boss and your project sponsor. Your job is to cover their backs and ensure their success.
Clearly define roles and responsibilities.
Team members perform far more effectively and reliably when they know what´s expected of them.
Learn from the past.
A great start to any new project is reviewing the lessons learned in similar past efforts. Then, you and your team can apply relevant lessons to the project at hand.
Seek out a mentor.
There´s no better way to learn your craft than by tapping into the treasure of knowledge, wisdom and experience around you.
Maintain a great attitude.
Your attitude permeates across the team. You are expected to support, inspire, encourage and give hope.