/kevinbehr/home

It’s a gorgeous orange and blue hued morning as I look out the west facing glass of my spacious corner office.  I walk behind the cherry desk and return and sit in the Herman Miller chair. After fuddling with the controls I get the chair to fit me correctly.

I open up my laptop and begin to connect the power adapter and arrange the desk.

“Hello?” I am startled by a voice from the door, which I had apparently failed to close.

“Good Morning!” I replied, if not a bit too enthusiastically, I thought.

“My name is Mariah Hansen and I am your assistant.  Can I get you anything?”

Mariah was certainly not hard to look at and that was a perk.  Now I needed to figure out if I could confide in her.  The role of interim executive is often not a popular one.  When a senior leader moves on from a company it can create some serious uncertainty amongst the staff. I made sure that everyone knew that the previous CIO had asked me to take over after he left.  I had met with every peer of the CIO to establish a social rapport and let them know I was here to serve.  I had attended company holiday functions and been entertained by the President and also by the divisional CEOs.  But I have found that IT staffs are often the hardest to win over. I have found that many feel a new CIO will fire them and bring in their own dream team. I knew that the only way to convince these folks was by painting the path we needed to get on and earning their credibility day by day. 

I walked over to the door to shake Mariah’s hand.

“Great to meet you Mariah, I am Phil Chairs.  I would love to get some coffee, but I haven’t been able to find it.”

She laughed musically “We have our own machine.”

I figured an IT department of nearly 800 people, in this location alone, would have its own coffee break room.

“Could you point me in the right direction? I need this stuff to get going.” I smiled.

“No, I meant you and I have our own machine! I have one of those pod machines that makes amazing coffee one cup at a time.  It’s in my cubicle towards the back next to the color laser printer.  The coffee pods are in the locking shelf above.  You can just email me or call and I can bring you a cup anytime you want.”

“Wow, I love that idea Mariah. Consider yourself emailed then.  I need two cups, and do we have any half and half?”

“Coming right up!  Oh and we should talk before your Leadership Team meeting this morning.  Paul, your boss wants to get an update on all IT projects and their status.  Now before you panic I have already got all of that information for you.  I put a folder in your basket that has the printouts.  I have also had your new deputy CIO, Rob McNunzio, put the data into power point slides that are waiting in your email.  Look all of that over while I get you coffee and we can chat about your scheduling this week when I bring it to you.”

“Sounds great.  Thanks so much!  See you in about fifteen then.”

As I walk back to my sleek cherry desk I find the bulging folder of project updates and begin to leaf through it.

As I sit down I wonder if this data is accurate.  When was any of this was audited last?  What is our project management process, and who was in charge?  Who managed the budgets and performed the plan updates?  What kind of oversight was currently in place?  I needed my right hand man. I reached for the phone and buzzed Mariah.

“Hello, office of the CIO this is Mariah”, she answered.

“Hey it’s me again, could you get a hold of Rob and have him meet with me after you and I are finished?  I need to get answers to some questions before the leadership team meeting.”

“It would be my pleasure.  Is that all?”

“Yep, thanks Mariah.”

After going through the project Gant charts and looking at the slides Rob had created I had many more questions swimming in my head.  I pulled out a yellow legal pad from my briefcase and began listing them out as they came.

1.       Is there an established PMO?

2.       Who are our project managers?

3.       Who controls the purchasing for capital projects?

4.       Who reports on status?

5.       How many projects are on the docket?

6.       Who prioritizes them and how?

7.       Do we have a project methodology?

8.       Who is in charge of resourcing and time tracking?

9.       Who is in charge of the financial side (tracking capitalized labor, P&L reconciliation, etc.)?

10.   Who manages the project risk issues?

11.   Why are so many of the large projects at 80% completion with more time left than has elapsed?

Just then Rob knocked on my door sporting a huge grin.

“Good morning, Chief.” He joked dryly

“Morning Rob” I cracked a smile.

“I guess we should talk about this circus of projects. Mariah just called me and I was relieved.  I didn’t want you going in to a bloodbath this morning.  You need some background and history on the key projects or else you will look like a wounded fawn in there to those jackals.  Believe me, you have a couple of guys, namely the CFO, Dave Williams, and the CMO, Skip Sorrenson, that will go type-a on you and try to assert dominance so they can horse-collar you like they did the last CIO.”

“Nothing like a friendly meeting of the leadership team” I thought aloud.