Drew Harteveld is Vice President/Program Manager of CIT Group. For over 100 years, CIT has provided lending, leasing & advisory services to small and middle market businesses. Drew has had a very impressive career, and – to put it mildly – we at Digital Mindshare think he is pretty awesome. Drew’s summary on his LinkedIn page pretty much says it all:
HERE’S THE MAGIC RECIPE:
1: Assemble the right team of aggressive, intelligent people.
2: Provide that team with a clearly-stated set of goals, translated into a granularly-defined scope of work.
3: Get out of the way, and allow the specialists to do what they do best. Erect just enough administrative structure to ensure a free flow of information throughout the team.
We had a chance to ask Drew some questions recently, and are thrilled to feature him in our Spotlight series.
DM: Tell us about your experience in interactive technology.
DH: I was uniquely positioned in design and production within the newspaper industry when Interactive really took off. I found my way to the New York Times, which was at the forefront of the space in that business. The late 90’s technology boom was in full swing, and there was enough work that to keep everyone busy 24/7. I took what I learned there and moved through a succession of start-up ventures in the publishing, finance, pharmaceutical, and garment industries. At that point, Interactive was just maturing beyond complex publishing and into being a viable platform for application distribution. That’s when it started to get really interesting.
DM: Why the move from IT to program manager at a financial services company?
DH: Well, I’m still in IT, just as the relationship manager between CIT’s shared service technology organization, and one of its five business units. My move into finance was motivated mainly by a desire to operate in a highly regulated industry. Legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley, and the fact that CIT is now a bank Holding Company, subject to all of the FDIC regulations, set an incredibly high standard for all aspects of the project management discipline.
DM: Can you share your recipe for success?
DH: It all boils down to an understanding and acceptance that structure is a positive organizing force in project execution. Meanwhile, all structure creates overhead. So the trick is to implement just enough structure to meet the needs of that particular team, building that particular product, in that particular business space. As project managers, we have to resist the tendency to become so enamored of our proven processes that we apply them without a critical eye to the cost/benefit of their inclusion in each and every case. Just like in writing, it’s only through brutally disciplined editing that you can take something that is merely good, and nurture it into something truly great.
DM: What exactly is a “Program Manager”?
DH: A Program Manager has jurisdiction over a project that is large and complex enough that it has multiple tracks each run by its own Project Manager. The Program Manager serves as the hub of all those separate sub-projects, providing the cross-project view and aggregating status up to senior leadership. The reality is that the Program Manager also acts as sort of a ‘sweeper’ for the team, addressing any items that fall through the cracks between the established tracks.
DM: Do you find that your project management and interactive experience serve you well in your current role as a program manager?
DH: Absolutely. You can’t operate successfully on a cross-project level until you have mastered tactical control of an individual project. The toughest part of the role for me is staying out of the weeds. If I become engaged in a specific track at too detailed a level, not only am I budging-in on my PM’s jurisdiction, but I am also leaving my own post – that big-picture, cross-project view – unattended.
DM: How do you manage change at CIT?
DH: Especially in the current fiscal environment, constant change is the only constant we have. To manage it successfully requires:
- A strong, well integrated team.
- A thorough understanding of the business being serviced, so that you can understand the motivations behind changing requests.
- Celebration of the little victories.
- Vocal appreciation for the energy invested by team members on each request, regardless of its ultimate role in the final product.
- A healthy respect for the power of tacit knowledge.
- A belief that we can make more long-term progress through constant iterative development than by attempting to plan and execute paradigm shift through a single massive project.