MATSON NAVIGATION: Architecture and Innovation Portfolio - IT Services PMO

The Architecture and Innovation Teams are one and the same at Matson…the Architecture team “officialized” “Innovation” at Matson. However, other groups, such as Infrastructure and Operations, were also and always are innovating. In fact, other groups at Matson are encouraged to participate in the Innovation projects, so team sizes could vary and expand beyond the Architecture team. My job was to manage the Architecture portfolio which also included the Innovation pipeline, process, and projects. The Innovation team started in 2015 with some initial concepts of how to shift a more traditional company culture and mindset to one that embraces innovation. When I took over the project management of the initiative, it was still largely undefined. However, by the time I left Matson, it had taken shape and was progressing at a respectable cadence. We had about 62 ideas at the time I left Matson. I ran a weekly triage meeting where I facilitated the review of new ideas and determination of business value, priority, and next steps in the pipeline process. Much of what occurred here was business case development…I drove collaboration and progress of the pipeline with the various business groups to determine need and overall value of the ideas. The ideas ultimately funneled into either a proof of concept, pilot, full-blown project or enterprise initiative….or were declined. The impulse behind the Innovation team is “keep thinking about how we can do things better”. The team is probably the most inspired and creative, free-thinking group in the company. I spearheaded the promotion of the "Innovation Newsletter", which aimed to inspire and fuel the spirit of innovation in the company. The diversity of this portfolio of projects, from large waterfall enterprise initiatives to larger hybrid Agile/waterfall development projects, to purely Agile projects, pilots, and POCs, honed my expertise in the planning and reporting of iterative work into traditional project roadmaps for executive-level communications. I also became skilled at distinguishing when a traditional project management style was needed, and when it was better to take a "servant leadership" approach and encourage self-organization among teams (i.e. Agile Scrum).