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Mr. Richard Tesmer Consulting, Coaching, and Speaking

Summary of Richard Tesmer's Project/Portfolio Management Skills

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Strategic Project/Program Planning

Created measurable KPIs for the accountability of the enterprise programs for SAP, Salesforce, and SAP eWMS to drive decisions, exceeding budget targets by 20%.
Documentation of management strategy through SWOT and GAP analysis.
Support the creation of the project or program charter, project initiation documentation, project planning documents, and business processes aligned with expectations.
Skills in talent management through recruitment and strong relationships with developers (on and offshore), IT professionals, security specialists, logistics, and procurement resulting in teams with the lowest turn over rates in the companies history.

Budget Management and Cost Reduction

Expertise in increasing sales targets by 10-20% through creating and using collaboration platforms.
Managed five major programs simultaneously, ensuring all deliverables met timelines and quality
standards; established effective feedback loops with clients, improving project alignment within
strategic direction by over 30%.
Highly skilled at managing active projects portfolio valued at $15M annually, with medium ($500K
to $1.5M) to large-sized projects/programs ($1.5M to $5M).

Team Leadership and Development

My plan to overcome resistance to Agile, was overcome by creating a hybrid approach called ScrumFall. This allowed an iterative approach while working within the project's triple constraints.
I am a specialist at implementing new technologies, improving projects, automation, customer engagement, customer relationship management, and performance.
I lead local and global project teams as shepherd leader, a servant leader, and a mentor.
I have built PMO teams of twelve senior-level project managers, paired with six junior project managers, four business analysts, and onshore/offshore development teams, elastically sized to high of 90 programming resources.
I excel at leading self-organized, agile, high-performing teams with a hands-on approach to building relationships, supporting end-to-end customer success stories, and resolving real-time issues.

Silos and Collaboration

With technology changing so quickly, Agile's use of Kanban and Scrum was added to replace most Waterfall projects, which led to smoother collaboration between matrixed teams.
I take pride in the development of global multicultural staffing of project resources with a high cultural empathy and sensitivity, which contributed to a 90% year-over-year retention rate of clients.
Through the combination, I was able to lead the combined efforts of Professional Services with Project Management teams. Resulting in an improved environment for custom applications, business units breaking down silos, and collaborating for improvement in communication.

Change Management

Custom solutions using COTS and/or customized Power Apps for data warehousing, defining and executing infrastructure plans, and working with projects leads to controlling scope and maintaining business priorities.
I place emphasis from day one on a project that Project Sponsors and stakeholders will need to create a Change Control Committee.

Risk Management

Balanced all project crises and, as needed, escalate executive leadership.
Using historical data analysis, complex project risk registers are part of project coordination, management, data integrity, directory services, business processes, mitigation strategies, and escalation points.

Stakeholder Management

As a leader filled with intellectual curiosity, on top of customer risk management, I led the teams to keep all project timelines under control.
Meeting business needs with solid customer feedback loops to build upon user experience and create alignment with strategic direction.
Managed teams in a matrixed environment using cross-functional collaboration to build and maintain various projects and technologies.

Center of Excellence

I dealt with daily prioritization by monitoring the PMO dashboard: a pipeline of 300 NGO, NPO, and For-Profit clients with an average of 65 active projects.
I ensured all team members, especially project managers, continue developing skills with additional training.
I analyzed workflows and established priorities for daily operations.
Commercial software such as Nintex Workflow and Microsoft Power Platform tools in Microsoft 365 are used for continuous improvement and future-proofing.

Richard Tesmer's Biographical Resume

01Jan

Productivity Point International: Trainer and Software Consultant

Growing his skills- Richard Tesmer led this period to expand his teaching and consulting skills.

Project Details

Project Title: Weatherford Database Optimization and Programming
Methodology: Waterfall
Start Date: 03/09/1997
End Date: 12/31/1997

Project Team:
- Project Manager: Richard Tesmer, Speaker, Consultant, Project Manager
- Team Size: 3
Project Details:
- Functional Reporting Team: Marketing
- Organizational Primary Focus: Consulting

PPI received a "cry for help" from a long-term Weatherford manager, now abandoned at a pumping station surrendered by Oi Derriks. He was assigned a project to take years of data and distill it from there into executive dashboard-level reports. The straightforward ones he did with no problem. The reset he couldn't do that, and his time was running out.

I was assigned to assess the situation and determine how much help he would need. My assessment—a lot! I figured he would need 20 hours per week for a month, split 50/50 between teaching and consulting. I needed to ensure he could take over himself after a certain period.

Week One, Day One, Monday. It's a long drive out to the middle of nowhere. But we are about to start something near and dear to my heart- mentoring and training. He had chosen Microsoft Access as his database tool, which was a good choice for his needs. I took him on a tour that first day and then set aside the last hour or so to work on one report. I put that as the tempo for the next two weeks. A few hours of learning, then an hour or so creating a report using the built-in Wizard tools. He loved the tempo and the result. The second week continued the temp but is now reversed- an hour or so of training, with the remainder of the day working on his reports. The trick was that I didn't create a single report; I had him create the SQL statements to generate the tables he would use and then the Report Wizard to create his layouts. Again, he loved how much control he had and how his confidence was growing each day.

I made one rookie mistake. I forgot to show him how to back up his Access work, and yes, he deleted the entire database with all four works. Fortunately for him, he did this on the server, so it had a very robust recycle bin. When the file was restored, he was happy, and I was shocked that it worked as well as it did.

Week three was about management: backups, sol statements, using the SQL server and connections, using a network location for the parent file, and then creating children's files on local workstations. He turned out to be one of my best students ever. That week just flew by, and I spent over 20 hours there, but he was happy to approve the hours.

Week Four was a tad sad. We both knew that this was the end of my assignment. We spent that week creating professional interfaces, security, and more logic than even he had asked for.

We also agreed that he would send me a copy of backed-up files at least once a week, and I would peruse them for any issues. As he requested, I would add more things to the backlog list every Friday. This continued for six months until he was promoted" out of that office and back into our world with a new corporate office.

About the Author

Mr. Richard Tesmer