Implementing
a Corporate Project Management Community of Practice Lessons
Learned and Best Practices
This presentation is
intended to share AOL's experiences throughout its 3-year journey of
implementing and operationalizing a Project Management (PM) Community
of Practice (CoP). Three speakers from rather different
corporate functions will share their unique perspectives as AOL's PM
CoP leaders - a Senior Project Manager in AOL's technology
organization, a Senior Program Manager in AOL's Human Resources
organization, and a Director from AOL's enterprise project support
organization. Questions to consider when establishing a
community of practice, as well as examples of best practices learned
from the AOL PM CoP effort, will be actively shared and
discussed. An actionable guide with highlights will be
distributed to all attendees.
About
the Speaker
Melissa Frescholtz
is a true old-timer at AOL, starting with the company in 1994 after
graduating from Virginia Tech with a BS in Human Resources. Over her
career at AOL, Melissa primarily worked within the Human Resources
department, serving in a number of roles including HR Generalist, HR
Manager, AOL University Program Manager and most recently as an
Instructional Designer within the AOL Learning Design Center. As the
Program Manager of AOL University she administered a company-wide
project management training and needs assessment. The findings from
this assessment drove the need to establish the Project Management
Community of Practice (PM CoP). With the help of a core group
of very dedicated Project Managers from across the organization, she
pursued and maintained the establishment of this community, serving as
co-leader of the CoP Steering Committee and as leader of the Learning
and Development sub-committee. While not a true Project Manager by
title, Melissa has built some invaluable core project management skills
from her involvement with the PM Community of Practice.
Melissa also holds an MS degree in Human Resources from Marymount
University and perhaps a PMP certification could be in her future.
Aaron Hall, PMP is
currently Vice President of Program Management at K12, a
technology-based curriculum and instructional tools development
organization that is committed to excellence in education. In
this role, he is responsible for leading and overseeing all programs
within K12’s Product Development group, to include accountability for
all Program Management staff, identification and implementation of best
practices, and delivery of results that contribute to a world class
educational product development capability. Prior to K12,
Aaron was a Director at AOL LLC where he had various project,
functional, and technical management roles, to include having global
responsibility for the portfolio/program management of AOL’s mobile
product and service offerings, leading AOL's Enterprise Project Office,
and building/managing several technology program/project management
teams; he also co-founded/co-led AOL's Project Management Community of
Practice. Prior to AOL, Aaron led the .biz internet domain
registry implementation and Project Support Office at NeuStar, served
as an implementation lead on several global technology projects with
Convergys Corporation, and was an engineer in the government services
realm with BDM. He is also a decorated US Army Reserve
officer who has served for over 17 years in multiple information
technology, aviation, engineering, and logistics assignments throughout
the world. Aaron is a certified Project Management
Professional (PMP), has a Master of Engineering Management degree and
Master’s Certificate in Project Management from The George Washington
University, and has a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from
Virginia Tech. He also serves on the Board of Directors of
the Project Management Institute, Washington, DC Chapter, the largest
non-profit professional society of its kind in the world.
Carolyn Hennings, PMP has
over 15
years experience helping IT organizations understand and advance their
operational and project management processes. Carolyn’s current role
focuses on IT Service Management processes at AOL LLC. She also founded
and co-led AOL's Project Management Community of Practice.
Carolyn
Hennings maintains the following certifications: Project Management
Professional (PMP®), ITIL® Service Manager, Certified Business Analyst.
Previous paper presentations include “Proposing a Project Office for a
Service Organization” at the 1999 Project Management Institute
Symposium.
