Speakers

Cheryl-Ann Cohen

Executive Director of Information Technology
ManTech International Corporation

Cheryl-Ann Cohen is the Executive Director of Information Technology for ManTech International Corporation. She has strategy and execution responsibility for enterprise systems, web development and customer support for ManTech. In addition, Ms. Cohen has oversight for the integration of acquired companies, of which there have been seven since 2002.

Prior to joining ManTech in 2000, Ms. Cohen spent 3 years with DynCorp, a government contractor with over 20,000 employees. She implemented the company’s first ERP system and subsequently managed the IT organization including business systems, networks, infrastructure, and messaging technologies. Ms. Cohen has over 23 years of IT experience, having begun her career as a systems engineer with IBM.

Ms. Cohen founded the Oracle Government Contracting Special Interest Group in 2003 and has served as its Communications Coordinator ever since. She is certified as a Program Management Professional and is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Topic: Implementing the Dekker PMIS™

Ms. Cohen’s presentation detailed how ManTech is utilizing the Dekker PMIS to attain its goal of increasing the company’s share of the government contracting market space. ManTech’s chief objective toward attaining this goal involves becoming an Earned Value Management (EVM)-certified contractor. “Ideally, we’d like to use EVM organization-wide, not only to gain EVM certification, but for the added benefit of providing value to all of our customers,” remarked Ms. Cohen.

She went on to state that ManTech has implemented the Dekker PMIS™ across many of its projects and programs, including those not subject to EVM compliance, as a way of enhancing project management and performance reporting. Additionally, ManTech has taken full advantage of the project management and EVM training offered by Dekker, Ltd.

“Just because you have the tools doesn’t mean you have EVM in place,” observed Ms. Cohen. “You still need to develop the processes and procedures, as well as the organizational and cultural mindset. The training that Dekker has provided for us supplements our own in-house activities and procedures, and ultimately will serve to foster the disciplines set forth by the Project Management Institute (PMI), as well as give our executives and managers real-time visibility into project performance.”

Click here to view the presentation in .pdf format.

Pamela Metz

Project Manager
United Space Alliance

Pamela Metz has been in the business of space travel and exploration for more than 20 years. From training astronauts to leading enterprise-wide projects, she has experienced the full spectrum of technical project management from both a government and industry perspective.

A design engineer by training, Ms. Metz began her career path at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, providing design, analysis and real-time flight control support for the Space Shuttle Program. She was certified as an astronaut trainer, where she developed curricula and worked directly with astronauts, supporting eight successful Shuttle missions.

Ms. Metz moved into technical project management, managing multi-million-dollar budgets and supervising teams of hardware and software engineers to develop unique training simulators and specialty facilities. After successfully managing a challenging Space Shuttle upgrades project involving cockpit avionics upgrades, Ms. Metz earned one of the industry’s most prestigious leadership awards.

She continues to develop business for both commercial and government space endeavors, utilizing her unique project management and leadership experience. Additionally, she uses her training and coaching skills to mentor students and professionals in the technical arena.

Ms. Metz holds an M.S. in technical management from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a B.S. in family life and human services from Louisiana State University.

Topic: Traversing Cultural Roadblocks

In her presentation, Ms. Metz described the project management challenges United Space Alliance (USA) faces in light of the fact that the Space Shuttle Program terminates in 2010. Because of this, and to ensure the long-term viability of the company beyond the Shuttle Program, USA plans to transition from a one-contract organization to a multiple-contract, multiple-customer organization.

Ms. Metz noted that this transition has already begun with the establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO) and the implementation of an enterprise-wide EVMS through the use of the Dekker PMIS. The big challenge, however, has been managing the cultural change necessary to make the PMO and EVMS successful.

“Fear is the biggest roadblock to change,” explained Ms. Metz. “As USA transitions into the multi-contract, multi-customer realm, we [the PMO] must figure out a way to minimize the fear that prevents some employees from embracing the PMO and understanding why it helps USA in the long run.”

Ms. Metz said that without managing the cultural change required, USA cannot build its project management capabilities nor execute those critical projects that move the organization toward its future state as a multi-contract, multi-customer company.

To traverse these cultural roadblocks, Ms. Metz outlined four critical approaches that have put USA on the correct path to affecting cultural change: 1) Communication from the top down; 2) Mandating enterprise-wide policies; 3) Ongoing project management training; and 4) Effective in-house consulting.

With these approaches in place, Ms. Metz has found that USA’s corporate culture is slowly changing for the better. “Patience is the key to affecting any sort of change,” she remarked. “At the end of the day, we must continue to understand the culture and evaluate and mitigate the cultural roadblocks so that we stay on course to our goal.”

Click here to view the presentation in .pdf format.

Vince Marcello

Filmmaker

Vince Marcello has directed for both stage and film, staging over 25 professional theatrical productions and directing more than a dozen films. Most recently he worked in New York City writing, producing and directing commercials, promotional films and industrial videos.

For five years, he served as the Executive Director of Film and Video Productions for Ethan Allen, Inc. overseeing the management of dozens of film projects and live events. Mr. Marcello has also worked as a public speaker, conducting seminars and workshops throughout the country on the subjects of sales training, management, peak performance consulting and video/film production.

Currently, he works in Hollywood developing various feature films, commercials and music video projects as a director and producer and continues public speaking and training through his company, MARCELLO CONSULTING.

Mr. Marcello holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Florida and a master’s degree in filmmaking from the University of Southern California.

Topic: Project Management in the Film Industry

Mr. Marcello’s unique and insightful presentation demonstrated how project management practices and principles are applied within the film industry.

Although not specifically classified as such, Mr. Marcello explained that a film project has a definite four-phase project life cycle of defining, planning, execution and delivery. These phases correspond to the more traditional filmmaking terms of development, pre-production, production and post-production, and marketing and distribution.

Mr. Marcello delved further into each phase of a film project, using his award-winning short film Zombie Prom as an example of how a film makes the journey from script to screen. He also demonstrated how the film project would have been tracked using the Dekker PMIS™.

“I wish I had access to the Dekker PMIS™ on my last project,” pronounced Mr. Marcello. “The way you can easily manage changes to a schedule, not to mention being able to look at everything [resources, schedule, budget] in one glance...this [product] would have been enormously valuable to me as a producer.”

After listening to Mr. Marcello’s presentation, Forum attendees realized that, in terms of the project management paradigm, film production is extremely similar to the more conventional industries in which they are involved.

Click here to view the presentation in .pdf format.

Simon Dekker

President and CEO
Dekker, Ltd.

Simon Dekker is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Dekker, Ltd. He has broad based experience in the relationship of project management to finance and cost-schedule integration. Mr. Dekker is the original author of the Dekker PMIS™, which continues to lead the project portfolio management market in providing a complete project, program, portfolio management and EVM solution. Additionally, Mr. Dekker has consulted on contemporary management disciplines and system applications in government agencies and commercial business units.

Prior to founding Dekker, Ltd., Mr. Dekker engineered and developed scientific, defense and business systems for a wide array of customers. Mr. Dekker has published various articles on project management, EVM, and project portfolio management, and he appears regularly as a guest speaker at various trade associations throughout the United States and Europe.

Topic: Business Intelligence and Project Management

Mr. Dekker’s presentation underscored the Forum’s theme of the importance of business intelligence in an organization’s overall corporate strategy.

“In order to develop a strategic plan,” Mr. Dekker said, “the organization must scan its business environment.” This “scan” is done primarily through PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technology) and TOWS (Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Strengths) analyses. The PEST analysis serves to reveal the important and changing factors that affect a business from the outside, while the TOWS matrix not only ascertains factors external to the organization, but internal to the organization as well.

Mr. Dekker explained that once these external and internal factors have been identified, the organization has the business intelligence it needs to develop sustainable objectives that can be measured. These objectives are most commonly implemented via mission-critical programs comprised of numerous mission-critical projects. To ensure these projects are contributing to the overall strategic plan, some formal method of evaluation and control is necessary.

For the most effective control, Mr. Dekker said, the project manager and other project stakeholders need a single project management information system (PMIS) to collect data and report progress on cost, schedule and specifications. The data collected for business intelligence purposes are determined by which key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics would be used for project control, as well as by the threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths identified through the PEST and TOWS analyses. The KPIs selected should provide answers to questions of scope, schedule, resources, cost and financial performance, and these answers should result in the quantification of organizational goals and objectives. Mr. Dekker went on to clarify his thesis with a case study of the remodeling project underway at the nearby Silver Gate Yacht Club.

Mr. Dekker concluded his presentation stating, “By monitoring KPIs, a company can assess the present state of business and prescribe actions that will either maintain or alter its course.” The statement summed up the ultimate goal of business intelligence – sensing data from the external business environment and internal business operation in such a way as to turn an organization into one that learns from its current and past experience.

Click here to view the presentation in .pdf format.