Tara Garrison
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Toptal member since February 24, 2020
Tara Garrison is a success-driven PMO lead and program manager, offering 15+ years of experience in developing and leading portfolios, programs, and projects for healthcare, fintech, and professional services. A Certified Project Management Professional, Tara excels at implementing program management methodology, communicating with stakeholders, and leading international teams to successful software implementations and new product introductions.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Project Manager
Mind Machine
- Worked as a fractional project manager and collaborated with the founder, director of operations, and chief marketing officer. Developed and launched a website for Growth Accelerator for life science, medtech, and biotech.
- Standardized the onboarding process for incubators and startup clients.
- Matured the company's 'to-do' list into a portfolio roadmap based on the founder's strategic vision and current book of business.
Project Manager
Freelance
- Provided project and operations management consultation to startup companies in the healthcare IT, education, nonprofit, and engineering sectors. The total portfolio exceeds $3 million.
- Created full-fledged project management implementation plans, accounting for ROI, cost-benefit, and other analyses.
- Integrated Atlassian tools for requirements and Agile project management.
- Resolved conflicts and negotiated agreements between parties to reach win-win solutions and clarify misunderstandings during the project.
- Implemented reporting and onboarding operational project improvements that resulted in significant savings and improved profit margins.
- Provided and maintained accurate and timely project management information in all project plans, communications, status reporting, and SharePoint sites.
- Performed detailed assessments of project management risks to determine constraints and develop mitigation strategies.
- Utilized bottom-up and top-down cost estimating to establish project budgets.
- Created budgeting templates and executed estimate vs. actual analysis—accounting for project variances on a phase, deliverable, or resource level. Worked with internal teams and clients to resolve budget variances.
- Worked with clients, business analysts, and developers during the project discovery phase to build mind maps, user experience workflows, and wireframes.
PMO Lead
ASML Holding
- Developed and launched standard operation procedures for PMO standard work in reporting, financial management, resource management, and risk management across 35 products and a 250 million Euro team portfolio.
- Set up workflow and reporting cadence and managed the monthly business review process for 35 products.
- Led the long-term financial planning and annual budgeting process for the business line.
- Owned the business line PMO recruiting process, working with PMO directors and recruiters to standardize and optimize the recruiting and onboarding of 100 PMOs annually.
Project Manager
Alcole LLC
- Worked with a partner to develop a standard project management plan for mergers and acquisitions.
- Established a work breakdown structure via stakeholder interviews.
- Created a partner presentation to launch standard project management processes.
- Transitioned the company from unstandardized, Word-based project management to streamlined, consistent project management processes driven via Smartsheets.
Mid/Senior Digital Project Manager
Publicis Groupe EMEA - LePub Netherlands
- Joined the team as support for the project manager, then became the direct project manager for the project. Created and managed project budget.
- Delivered a project that developed a prototype for the client based on market analysis. This required management of product managers, designers, and translators.
- Created and executed a communications plan to ensure international stakeholder and leadership alignment on project progress.
PMO Lead
Philips
- Led the project management office standup from the inception of professional services and solutions delivery within Philips.
- Orchestrated process and tool development centered around standard work that resulted in streamlined efficiencies, automated metric reporting, and standardized stakeholder communication.
- Designed and developed an enterprise initiative project framework, program governance systems, and knowledge management processes to facilitate successful project manager onboarding.
- Built stakeholder relationships within a highly matrixed organization to design and execute a communications strategy for programs sponsored by the executive committee.
- Successfully delivered an education program worth 1.5 million euros to build a digital learning framework across different business units.
Technical Project Manager | Presales
IBM
- Collaborated with the sales team to identify new opportunities worth over $1 million within retail markets.
- Engaged with the sales team and potential clients to deliver product demonstrations.
- Developed sales demonstrations using IBM Watson Analytics.
- Worked with the sales team to build project estimates for project proposals.
Senior Project Manager
Domino Technologies
- Managed the development lifecycle of the State of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation projects targeting reimbursement agreements and pavement asset management systems exceeding $3 million.
- Led the project team through the requirements validation process and mentored junior staff in requirements gathering and project management best practices.
- Tracked and reported the project management scope and project results to external customers and other stakeholders.
- Developed project management templates to create consistency in reporting.
- Led the quarterly executive reporting effort as a project manager to the project management office.
Agile Project Manager
Deloitte Consulting
- Joined the company as a business analyst and progressed to project manager for a series of federal government business intelligence implementations.
- Worked within a highly matrixed environment to implement a budgeting system for the US Department of the Navy in one of the largest operations software implementations in the agency's history, exceeding $2 billion.
- Monitored contracts and service-level agreements to identify potential risks and implement mitigation actions to protect the development process from unforeseen delays and costs.
- Planned and executed functional requirements gathering via interviews, document analysis, storyboards, use cases, and business process mapping.
- Worked with stakeholders to prioritize requirements and plan for a phased release schedule.
- Designed and implemented a change control process for requirements.
- Coordinated biweekly stakeholder meetings for project actions and risk-information sharing.
- Drove Cognos BI projects to completion by utilizing a Waterfall project management methodology.
- Mentored 25 junior consultants and business analysts through the PMP certification process.
- Worked with senior leadership to identify areas of potential sales within existing clients.
Project History
PMO Setup for Semiconductor Global Company
Process standardization and rollout for PMO standard work in reporting, financial management, resource management, and risk management across 35 products and a 250 million Euro team portfolio
I worked with development and engineering teams to manage the change towards standard work, coordinating training, soliciting feedback, and monitoring progress to communicate to leadership.
Auditing Software for Healthcare and Education Industries
Worked with product management to plan backlog, led the delivery of several releases of cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant software, and engaged with end users to solicit product feedback for continuous improvement.
• Managed over ten international contractors through the discovery, planning, execution, and testing phases of several product releases.
• Served as a scrum master and regularly met with the product owner for backlog grooming and sprint planning.
• Led monthly client calls to review development efforts and collect feedback.
System for the Department of Navy
Planned, launched, and executed a proof of concept to build the federal budget system for the US Department of the Navy.
• Served as a project manager.
• Led a team of business analysts, developers, testers, federal stakeholders, and other government contracting teams.
• Gathered system requirements.
• Developed the solution in the Cognos Enterprise Planner.
• Trained federal staff on usage.
Adaptive Telehealth
Launched and managed several updates to the Adaptive Telehealth platform.
• Managed an international team of ten consultants to plan, execute and maintain an HIPPA-secure telehealth platform.
• Performed regular sprint demonstrations with the product owner and client stakeholders.
• Attended industry conferences to demonstrate the platform with the internal sales team.
• Regularly held platform training sessions for rural healthcare providers.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Information Systems and Accounting
The George Washington University - Washington, DC, USA
Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics, Strategic Management
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA, USA
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Skills
Tools
Jira, Asana, Google Docs, Slack, Skype, Skype for Business, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Visio, Basecamp, Microsoft Project, Trello, Confluence, Harvest, Redmine, Salesforce, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Cvent, IBM Cognos, Wrike, Figma
Paradigms
Agile, Waterfall Delivery, Requirements Analysis, Change Management, Kanban, Implementation Project Management, Agile Project Management, Scrum, Agile Product Management, PMBOK, Management
Platforms
Monday.com, Zendesk, WordPress, CiviCRM, Drupal
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Professional Services, Digital Agencies, Digital Marketing, Higher Education
Other
Smartsheet, Microsoft Teams, User Requirements, Business Requirements, Scrum Master, Communication, Communication Management, Consulting, Task Management, Waterfall Methodology, Project Management, Agile Sprints, Stakeholder Management, Project Planning, Project Tracking, Google Apps, Software Project Management, Workflow, Legacy Software, Healthcare IT, Program Management, Technical Project Monitoring, Web Project Management, Entrepreneurship, Business Analysis, Web Development, Business Processes, Process Improvement Project Management, Process Improvement, Business to Business (B2B), Digital Project Management, Innovation, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Business Operations, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Project Coordination, Agile Program Management, Project Reporting, Project Management Professional (PMP), Digital Transformation, Reporting, COE, Discovery, Project Management Office (PMO), Process Documentation, Project Timelines, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Sprint Planning, Release Management, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Stakeholder Engagement, Business & Digital Transformation, Business Transformation Project Management, PMO, Information Gathering, Project Delivery, ClickUp, Multi-functional Teams, Budget Management, Project Discovery, MicroStrategy, Website QA, Software QA, IBM Watson Analytics, Leadership, InVision Studio, Software as a Service (SaaS), Digital Solutions, Budgeting, Project Estimation, Scrum Coaching, Certified Scrum Professional, Estimations, Business Consulting, Marketing, Medical Software, Healthcare Services, Business Process Automation, Web & Mobile Applications, APIs, eCommerce, Discovery Workshops, Business Continuity, Mobile/Web Project Management, Automation, Technical Project Management, Product Development, Business to Consumer (B2C), Finance, Product Management, Edtech Design, Mentorship & Coaching, Best Practices, Agile Coaching, Process Analysis, Troubleshooting, SaaS, Planning, Management Consulting, Business Transformation, Digital Strategy, Facilitation, Stakeholder Interviews, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Governance, Healthcare Product Manager, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Community Development, IT Project Management, Contract Review, Vendor Selection, Vendor Management, Request for Proposal (RFP), Team Leadership, Client Success, IT Projects, Annual Operating Plans, Product Roadmaps, New Product Rollout, Sales Enablement, Investments, Sales, Mobile UI, New Products, Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Risk Management, Estimation & Planning, Private Equity, Microsoft Project Online, PMO Frameworks, PMO Processes, PMO Maturity Assessment, PMO Governance, PMO Development
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