PMO Deck

Why are you interested in joining DDAZ at this specific stage of our company's journey?

• Mission Match: DDAZ isn't just dental; the $1.1M Foundation grants prove a commitment to Arizona’s total health and a "people-first" culture.

• Strategic Evolution: Excited by the pivot to a diversified wellness company and the Medical-Dental integration (treating oral health as a leading indicator).

• The Value Add: I’m here to manage the capacity and process needed to move from legacy work to this "future-facing" health frontier.

Describe a time you stood up or fundamentally restructured a PMO function. What was the organization’s starting point, what PMO operating model did you build and what outcomes did it drive?

Headline: The 90-Day Backlog Fix

• Problem: $180M "Black Box" with a 90-day decision backlog and zero governance.

• Action: Built a "Listen, Prep, Automate" model with Smartsheet SOPs and dedicated review hours.

• Result: Slashed SLA from 90 days to 5 days (94% gain), 500+ top 28 seller backlog, and saved $4.5M GMS.

Tell us about your experience running and delivering programs in a healthcare payer environment where considerations such as regulatory requirements and member-facing obligations dictate what you can deliver and when. What did you need to keep in mind for a payer environment in particular?

Headline: The EU Legal Compliance Blueprint

• Problem: Legally mandated Digital Services Act (DSA) with non-negotiable deadlines and huge fines.

• Action: Mapped legal articles to IT flows and built automated "Alarms" for grace-period transparency.

• Result: 100% compliance met with zero risk; created the "Mental Model" blueprint for global scale.

This PMO needs to be the place leadership goes for a straight answer on what's happening across the portfolio. Give an example where you had to deliver a clear, honest picture of program health to senior leadership and it wasn't good news. How did you frame it and what happened next?

Headline: The 12% Conversion Audit

• Problem: Portfolio looked "Green" on Contracted Spend, but actual revenue conversion was only 12%.

• Action: Exposed the "Vanity Metric" and built a Proactive Health Monitor for inventory and compliance.

• Result: Conversion jumped from 12% to 65% ($85M captured) and shifted culture to "Actualized GMS."

We operate in a multi-party delivery model with internal teams, a shared services partner and systems integrators. How have you established governance, decision rights and escalation paths across multiple external parties running concurrent workstreams?

Headline: The 4.6M Seller Governance Model

• Problem: 84% scale-up involving Legal, Business, and AHS (Shared Services) with conflicting goals.

• Action: Defined "Decision Rights" (Non-negotiable vs. Nuanced) and built a Single Source of Truth dashboard.

• Result: 20% fewer support tickets and 1,000 bps increase in engagement via clear "Tripwires."

Detail out how you have configured or structured an enterprise project management platform from scratch (Smartsheet, Jira, or similar) to support portfolio-level visibility, cross-project dependency tracking and executive reporting.

Headline: The Smartsheet Enterprise Visualizer

• Problem: 22 programs with 30-minute manual reporting per case and zero portfolio visibility.

• Action: Engineered Cell Linking/Cross-Sheet Formulas and automated intake with Conditional Logic.

• Result: Reduced manual work by 96% (30 mins to 1 min) and saved leadership 4 hours/week.

How would you approach integrating business stakeholders from Marketing, Finance, Commercial Growth and Operations into a newly established PMO governance structure, especially in an organization where project management has not been formally set up?

Headline: The "Listen, Partner, Automate" Roadmap

• Phase 1 (Listen): Conduct a "Roadshow" to identify "Legacy Noise" and build rapport.

• Phase 2 (Partner): Establish Tiered Governance (Agile for Marketing vs. Budget/Ops for Finance).

• Phase 3 (Automate): Deploy Smartsheet Workspaces that roll up into one "Digestible" Exec Dashboard.

DDAZ is a close-knit organization where contributions are visible and celebrated. How do you embed organizational values into the day-to-day operating rhythm of your team and the teams you interact with?

• Problem: High-pressure "Grind" was causing morale dip and making human effort invisible.

• Action: Added "Peer Shout-outs" in Smartsheet and started Portfolio Reviews meetings with a "Celebration Slide."

• Result: Broke down silos and shifted rhythm from "Task-Pure" to "People-First."

Describe how you’ve trained or educated non-PMO business teams on PMO processes (e.g., intake, status reporting, change control). How did you get buy-in from individuals who may see a PMO as overhead?

Headline: The Integrated Planning Framework

• Problem: Opaque "Technical Fog" between internal IT, Cloud Vendors, and Systems Integrators.

• Action: Created Portfolio Reviews (Tactical/Me), SteerCo (Strategic/Sponsor), and Escalation Forums (Urgent/Tripwires).

• Result: Identified resource conflict 3 weeks early and delivered the digital transformation on time.

How do you design communication cadences (e.g., steering committees, portfolio reviews, escalation forums) that drive decisions rather than just status updates? Walk through an example of the structure you put in place.

Headline: The Integrated Governance Architecture

• Problem: Technical "Black Box" involving three parties (Internal, Vendor, Integrator) that stalled due to siloed communication.

• Action: Established a Tiered Cadence: Chaired a Weekly Delivery Syncs (Me), Facilitated Monthly SteerCo (Sponsors), and drove Ad-Hoc Escalation Forums triggered by "Tripwires."

• Result: Identified a resource bottleneck 3 weeks early and delivered on time; the client adopted the Smartsheet Dashboard as their permanent tool.

Describe how you’ve built early warning systems at the portfolio level, not just project-level. Not something tactical like RAID logs, but enterprise indicators that surface cross-project dependencies, resource conflicts or risks before they hit delivery timelines.

Headline: The Automated "Justice" Filter

• Problem: Internal data errors caused unjust seller suspensions, hurting trust and brand reputation.

• Action: Audited logic and built an automated Sev2 alarm for "Safe Harbor" sellers to trigger a 4-hour tech fix.

• Result: 62% improvement in accuracy and restored the "Straight Answer" accountability to regulators.

If you joined in this role, what would your first 90 days look like? What would you prioritize, what would you need to be successful and what would you want to have in place by the end of that window?

• Days 1–30 (Listen): Conduct a stakeholder "Roadshow" to identify Legacy Noise vs. future goals; find "Quick Wins" to build immediate trust.

• Days 31–60 (Partner): Build the Intake Engine and define Decision Rights; launch a functional pilot of the Smartsheet "Source of Truth."

• Days 61–90 (Automate): Shift from status updates to Decision Forums; roll out "Early Warning" Tripwires to catch risks before they hit delivery.

Questions:

1. I know the team is looking to shift to a diversified health and wellness company. What is the biggest internal hurdle you see in shifting the workforce's mindset to support this new mission?

2. How much of the current 'legacy discretionary work' is currently tied to projects that are hard to cut for political reasons? How can I best support leadership in making those tough calls?

3. What does 'visibility' look like at the executive level here? Are you looking for a real-time digital dashboard, or do you value the narrative and 'straight-answer' briefings more?