E24 Jan Schiller from Berkshire Consulting and Kevin Jacobs
In this episode of Project Management Office Hours Joe Pusz, PMO Joe, and his guests Jan Schiller from Berkshire Consulting and Kevin Jacobs take a deep dive into what makes a PMO successful, challenges in building a successful PMO, how to properly scope a PMO and much much more!
Jan shares her story working her way up the ranks, serving in varying roles across multiple industries. It is a common career path that many of us have followed. Jan has used these experiences to help build a very successful consulting practice supporting clients with PMO buildouts, Agile Transformations and more. Visit her LikedIn Profile to get access to free tools to help in scoping and building your PMO – https://www.linkedin.com/in/janschiller/
Kevin helps us understand the challenges of leading a successful PMO in a corporate setting. We discuss his experiences, challenges, successes and importantly his real-world, proven recommendations. We also hear Kevin discuss the importance of the PMP certification and how a personal experience changed his view on this popular industry certification.
Listen in to the episode to hear the stories Kevin and Jan share which paint a picture of a rewarding yet challenging career as a PMO leader. We covered a lot of ground in this chat and learned valuable lessons, heard shared experiences, and gained access to available tools and insights to help solve some of your PMO challenges.
Tune in for upcoming shows with Project Management leaders and also Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Spreaker or your favorite podcast platform! Our next show will be March 7th with Danielle Crop and Dana Brownlee.
Berkshire Consulting, LLC is a women-owned business specializing in delighting clients by linking strategy to results with project management. They put structure on ambiguity and help organizations achieve results in a productive, continuous, agile and cost-effective manner. Their high-caliber leaders provide premier solutions in alignment with strategies and priorities.
Berkshire Consulting‘s distinctive business model, combined with their selective recruiting process and criteria, are designed to deliver results that will help organizations realize high levels of return on their project portfolio investments and adapt to a changing landscape. The outcome is high levels of consistent solution delivery from professionals who become a valued part of the team.
Jan Schiller is a results-oriented executive focused on revealing the path that transforms ideas and goals into results. She collaborates to identify the most effective path from where organizations are to where they want to be. Jan helps organizations reliably achieve their strategy, delight their customers now and into the future, and digitally transform in a timely, cost-effective manner.
Jan enjoys sharing her expertise and experience in a way that inspires wisdom and maximizes potential. She enjoys volunteering as a career development mentor and writing about scope and project portfolio management for PMWorld360.
Her wildly important goal is to leave the world better than she found it, and to have fun doing it.
Connect with Jan on LinkedIn and at Berkshire Consulting.
Kevin Jacobs holds a Masters of International Management from Thunderbird, a Doctor of Business Administration in Information Systems focused on Project and Change Management from Argosy, and is in his last semester of a Masters of Science in Analytics from Dakota State University. He completed his PMP in 2015 and designed an internal PMP course, which he currently teaches. He is also a Certified Scrum Master, and has been designing internal training and processes to implement Agile, Scrum, and Design Thinking principles.
Kevin has had a professional career focused on MIS project management, with 17 years of experience as a Business Analyst, Business Solutions Architect, Project Manager, and PMO manager. He has worked in a variety of fields including banking, construction, telecommunications and document management. He currently manages the MIS PMO for a global mining company in Phoenix. His current focus is on providing better portfolio visibility to resource availability and cross project dependencies finding better ways to get management the information they need while reducing the impact on project managers.
Connect with Kevin on Linkedin and at The Project Scientist.
ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE HOURS SERIES
Project Management Office Hours is intended to provide Project Management professionals a place to drop in and discuss Success Stories, Best Practices, and Lessons Learned. Project Management Consultant Joy Gumz has shared with us, “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”
Each of us has a unique story to tell, but collectively we share a message that organizations who embrace Project Management Best Practices perform better than those which don’t. Organizations which align Projects to Strategy perform better. Organizations with Engage Executive Sponsors deliver better results. Organizations which measure Project Management performance outperform those which don’t.
During our Project Management Office Hours, we hear directly from Industry leaders how to make an impact in our profession. How we, collectively, will Advance Project Management Best Practices, One Listener at a time!
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ABOUT YOUR HOST
Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.
THE PMO SQUAD focuses exclusively on PMO and Project Management consulting. Corporate America is full of Accidental Project Managers running projects who haven’t been trained to be PMs. To help solve this problem THE PMO SQUAD is on the Leading Edge with PMO As a Service. PMO As a Service allows our clients to focus on their respective core competencies while THE PMO SQUAD delivers Project Management expertise. Contact Joe at 678-591-7868. Follow The PMO Squad on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
