Meet the Expert
Larry Pendergrass
Principal, TecZecs
- More than 30 years in the high tech industry, including 17 years in management and 14 years in science and engineering, working for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Keithley Instruments, Tektronix and Danaher Corp.
- Experience spans a wide range of industries (semiconductors and other discrete devices, materials research, test and measurement, wireless, medical products and software) and a diverse set of technologies (electronics, optics, acoustics and magnetics).
- Specializes in corporate and product strategy, project portfolio management and fast cycle time product development. Also, highly experienced in NPI processes and R/D metrics, creating an innovation culture, cross-geographic development and manufacturing, project valuation, project platform management, talent acquisition and management, change management, and acquisition targeting, valuation and roadmap integration.
- MBA in management from Case Western Reserve University and MA in physics from University of California, Davis.
Meeting Packages from $400
Your Meeting Package Includes:
- All 10 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Balancing the Project Portfolio to Reflect Corporate Objectives
Principal, TecZecs
Skills
- Strategy – It is essential to an effective PPM process to have strong skills in strategy. A PPM process can be started without this skill in the organization, but the PPM process will quickly illuminate the weaknesses in the strategy and the strategic processes.
- Corporate strategy – Solid understanding and experience in producing a clear, concise, actionable strategy that will fulfill the firm’s mission and vision. This strategy will enable decisions in the PPM team. It should show how and why your company will win in the marketplace, and how you will differentiate yourselves against the field of competitors. It should describe markets in which you will play. It should show key outcomes for which the customers in your chosen markets are willing to pay.
- Market strategy – Since most firms are serving multiple markets and wish to conquer new markets, setting up a market strategy is usually essential to achieving company goals. A market strategy should answer many of the same questions as a corporate strategy, but within a given market segment. With the backdrop of the corporate strategy (including key customer outcomes, etc.) how and why will you win in a given market? How will you differentiate with respect to the competition? How will your approach in this market be different than your approach in other markets?
- Product strategy – Dropping down further to a given product category, the same questions should be answered. In this product category, what will be your "key competitive contribution," the reason you will win in the market place?
- Execution – A good PPM process requires an excellent grasp of execution and the impact of this execution on PPM. Inputs to the PPM process will come from your execution engine. PPM will also influence this engine through the choices of projects in the pipeline, and their priorities.
- New product development execution – You need not only to generate new products and services, you need to do this in a way that achieves success in a given industry. Perhaps this industry is new and will require developing a new delivery chain including new product development. Perhaps you will require faster execution in order to keep up with the chosen industry and market. You also need excellent status reporting methods to feed the PPM process.
- Financial valuation of projects – To make the difficult portfolio decisions demanded by PPM, your financial valuation of projects must be correct, common through the firm and supported by the office of the CFO. Furthermore, it must have uncertainty analysis. Many decisions will be made by the PPM team based on these computations, so they must be solid and deliver the quantification essential to the PPM process.
- Change management and influencing without authority – During the implementation of any major change, understanding of best practices in change management and influencing others will be essential. Your firm needs to fully understand and embrace these principles.
- Combining Strategy and Execution – In addition to the essential skills above (strategy-setting and execution), you will need to develop the skills and knowledge of how to combine all if this into a PPM process. How do you cut and slice the data to illuminate the current mix of risk and payback, of time to money and investment cost? There is a set of key concepts, tools and processes that make chartering and creating a PPM team much easier.
Balancing the Project Portfolio to Reflect Corporate Objectives:
Skills
Expert Topic