Client Case Study

ADVO

“John Schlichter is a recognized expert in project management and particularly skilled in the areas of organizational project management maturity. John brings to the table years of experience having worked with companies and project offices of all shapes and sizes. I have known and worked with John since 2004 and would highly recommend him to any organization seeking to understand and advance project management and organizational capabilities." Senior Vice President, BOT International, worked with John at ADVO.

Challenge
ADVO is the largest target home-delivered print advertising company in the US, with revenues of nearly $1.2 billion and shared and solo advertising programs reaching on average 67 million households weekly. ADVO had undertaken a large program to redesign its service delivery and implement an integrated system to automate processes. They wanted a PMO to govern the redesign program and to create a sustainable project management capability within ADVO.

Solution
OPM Experts performed an assessment of the organizations that comprised the redesign program including both in-house employees and vendors. The assessment was conducted rapidly through a series of one-on-one interviews in order to identify currenct project management processes, practices, and behaviors. As a result, new management policies were implemented and stop-gap measures were taken. The schedules of the projects of the program were replanned and integrated. Processes were documented emphasizing Integration Management, Scope Management, Time Management, Communications Management, and Risk Management. Status indicators were negotiated with executive sponsors, and performance was reported and forecasted weekly.

Results
ADVO successfully implemented its mission critical service redesign program on time. The PMO remained in place, and an executive was recruited to manage it going forward, continuing to build ADVO's sustainable project management capability.