Bringing Practicality to Enterprise Portfolio Management

Desperate times call for practical measures, isn’t that how the saying goes? Sure seems that practicality is the name of the game these days, as the world decides what is and isn’t essential. What is essential in your life? Chances are, your answers have changed drastically in the last month or even within the last week.

Across the enterprise, individuals are regularly impacted by change – this isn’t new. Most recently, change has become drastic and global. Our way of life has been disrupted, leaving much of the world reliant upon digital technologies to stay-in-touch and productive or having devastating impacts on those not positioned to weather disruption at this scale. While we can’t always control the change we face – we can control how we prepare and act.

So much of what enterprise portfolio managers do — whether that be managing portfolios of projects or services, or overseeing an enterprise architecture — can provide immense value in the face of change. For those of you in these types of roles, you’re probably feeling immense pressure from your organizations to deliver value and help your businesses understand the “what ifs” and help executives “know what they don’t know.”

If there is any comfort in change, it’s that we’re in it together. Many of us are facing the same questions, just in different contexts. The only way out of it is through it – together. We have many individuals at Changepoint who have been in your shoes or occupied your role. They have had to answer the same executive, business-critical questions you’re being asked now. From successes to failures, they have learned and developed successful solutions to business problems across myriad industries. This wealth of practical experience is immensely valuable to our ecosystem.

Announcing a new content series with articles from practitioners, for practitioners.

From strategic guidance on shifting to a portfolio mindset and establishing an enterprise project management office (PMO), to tactics for resource management, adoption strategies and utilizing visual analytics strategically.

Backed by roughly 100 years of combined experience, these seasoned practitioners will publish articles with practical guidance for you to apply immediately in your daily work. We hope that these articles not only provide you with value to your role and actionable guidance, but that they also start a dialogue. Adapting to change requires effective communication. Our goal is to provide you the words and perspectives to help you effectively communicate within your organizations, to adapt to any change and drive better business outcomes.

The articles

This post will be updated with the latest practitioner articles as they are released.

Focus on Portfolio – Not Projects – in PPM

Author: Changepoint PPM Evangelist, Greg Stellflue.

Portfolio managers play a vital role within organizations, yet there are some myths around the role and its intrinsic value. The value of portfolio managers is often misunderstood and understated — often as a result of too much emphasis being placed on projects and execution, rather than portfolios as a whole and how they drive strategic initiatives to desired outcomes. Read the full article here >>

PMO Success: Changing Your Employees’ Mindset to Change Company Culture

Author: Changepoint Solution Architect for Strategic Portfolio Management, Debra Aizikovitz, PMP, CSM, PMOC, CCMP

How well your Project Management Office (PMO) or Enterprise PMO (EPMO) functions is contingent on two things: the mindset of each of your employees and establishing a strategic top-down project portfolio culture. Read the full article here >>

Manage Your Resources to Support Portfolio Strategy During Uncertainty

Author: Senior Customer Success Strategist, Kerry Good, PMP, CSM.

Effectively managing resources is always a complex task: doing so with limited resources and disparate tools can become a losing battle, especially in the current climate. Maintaining employees and resourcing the right projects with the right people at the right time is critical to business success. Read the full article here >>

The practitioners

Debra Aizikovitz
Debra joined Changepoint in February 2020 as a Solution Architect after spending over 30 years at thyssenKrupp Elevator. She was most recently the IT Senior Director for Strategy, EPMO and Compliance where she partnered with the CIO in providing technology portfolio vision and direction for the enterprise. Overall, Debra has more than 35 years of experience in management, with an emphasis on IT management and

and holds a master’s degree from Villanova University in IT/IS Project Management.

Her background includes:

thyssenKrupp Elevator – IT Senior Director, Strategy, EPMO and Compliance. Additional roles included: IT PMO Director, Senior IT Project Manager, IT Project Manager, Branch Business Manager, Corporate Collection Manager.
James Hardie Irrigation, Inc. – Corporate Credit Manager
Scott Machinery – Credit Manager

John Delaney
John came to Changepoint in November of 2019 as a Senior Customer Success Strategist. Prior to Changepoint he was the Senior PMO Director for IT Services leader, Conduent. With over 20 years of consulting and management experience, John has provided professional services and solutions to companies in pharmaceutical/life sciences and healthcare.

All-in-all, his experience includes:

Conduent – Senior Director, PMO
Johnson Controls International – Senior Manager, Enterprise Portfolio Management Office (ePMO) Operations
Medecision – Senior Director, PMO & Professional Services. Additional roles included: PMO Director, Senior Project Manager.

Kerry Good
Kerry has been a Senior Customer Success Strategist at Changepoint since April 2018. Before joining us, she spent nearly 6 years as the Director of IT PMO for Adtalem Global Education where she planned, directed, tracked, managed progress, resolved issues, and managed change for project management teams across the organization. In total, Kerry has more than 20 years of project management experience and holds a master’s degree in IT Project Management from DePaul University, where she also taught graduate and undergraduate Project Management.

Her experience includes:

DePaul University – Adjunct Faculty
Adtalem Global Education – IT PMO Director
DeVry Education Group (acq. By Adtalem) – Sr. Project Manager
The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business – PMO Director, Sr. Application Development Director

Larry Kading
Larry has been with Changepoint since 2004 and is currently our Changepoint SA Evangelist. Larry has served countless customers developing and deploying solutions across myriad services organizations with a proven track record in bridging the gap between the business and IT. He holds over 20 years of management experience across various technologies, industries, and market segments. Before Changepoint, Larry was the Sr. Director of Client Information Systems for Precision Response Corporate. His background includes:

Precision Response Corporation (acq. By Alorica) – Sr. Director, Client Information Systems
Digital Lighthouse Corp. – Director, Business Services
Allin Corporation – Sr. Project Manager, Logistics Manager

Alyssa Marland
While Alyssa has been an employee of Changepoint since August of 2019, she has worked with Changepoint for nearly a decade and lends that experience to our customers as a Premier Solutions Consultant. Before joining she spent over seven years at Radial Inc., most recently as the Tools Configuration Manager for Enterprise Portfolio Management.

With over 15 years of experience, her background includes:

Radial Inc. – Tools Configuration Manager, Enterprise Portfolio Management
Additional roles included: PMO Program Manager, Omnichannel Operations Program Manager, Sr. PMO Business Analyst.
SEI – Business Analyst, Cross Platform Applications. Additional roles included: Business Support Specialist, Business Management Analyst, PMO Admin, Sr. Analyst, Analyst.

Greg Stellflue
Greg joined Changepoint in November of 2019 as our newest Changepoint PPM Evangelist. He has decades of IT leadership experience with a proven background in successfully managing large portfolios on a global scale. He was most recently a Virtual IT Executive (VITE) for Level5ive Consulting working for Gardner Denver as a portfolio manager to implement Changepoint PPM. He also spent 15 years as a Portfolio Manager for Johnson Controls International where he received a merit award for the design and development of a demand process used to annually trim $200M in portfolio requests.

His background includes: