Swan Song

This blog post is one of the few in my blogging history that has been easy to submit on time. For most of my blog posts, it has been a struggle. More on that in a bit, but first a little historical perspective.

Our group, the Project Management Office (PMO) in the IS department, started this blog a little over 12 years ago. A fellow group member, Meagan, did the very first post titled Blogging about Blogging on November 14, 2011. Since then, the PMO has created 279 blog posts and I’ve done 28 of them. I like to write, so this blog became a wonderful reason to write something every few months.

What usually caused me to be late for some blogs was my struggle to come up with something to write about. I have often spent hours or days trying to identify a subject that would adequately inform, interest, or entertain our readers. When I finally picked one, I was usually able to write the blog pretty quickly.

This blog post is different though. It will be on time because picking what to write about has been easy. It is the result of what has been my preoccupation for weeks. The subject of this blog revolves around the fact that this is going to be my last blog, and the reason is because I’m retiring in the Spring. Yikes!

More history. I started working at Dana-Farber almost exactly 16 years ago on Feb 4, 2008 in the role of project manager. I was attracted to the job because I had been in a similar role at the Boston Globe for the previous seven years and liked it. I left because our group was laid off. I joined Dana-Farber because I was impressed by the people I had met in interviews, was drawn to Dana-Farber’s mission, and felt very comfortable with my new manager, Deb Cote. My positive first impressions of Deb were substantially reinforced over the ensuing years; she’s been a great manager and friend.

I’ve liked so much being a member of the PMO. With Deb’s guidance, we managed to find team members over the years that had good chemistry with the group, supported each other and were very good project managers. We built a high-functioning PMO and contributed to our customers, in part by leading over 160 projects to completion. Many of them were huge projects that meant a lot to Dana-Farber. The PMO team members also helped Deb’s training team to deliver hundreds of Project University classes to learners from across the institute over the last decade. And our team also had some fun and good food along the way.

I’ve been lucky to have worked at Dana-Farber for this many years. It’s the longest tenure I’ve had at any job. It’s an honor to end my career here.