November 9, 2017 - Charles Lathem: How to Mature Your PMO

How to Mature Your PMO: Moving Beyond Operational Metrics

Charles “Chuck” Latham is currently the Director of Shared Services Operations at Alfa Insurance Company. He is responsible for creating the corporate Project Management Methodology, designing and facilitating the Project Governance process, overall Project and Portfolio Management. He is skilled in metric development and both strategic and tactical approaches to Project Management Office (PMO) operations. He established the first dashboards and created a robust Resource Management process and capacity metrics from the ground up. His oversight pushed the Alfa PMO maturity from 1.5 to 3 on the Gartner PM Maturity Assessment Scale in just two years. Before joining Alfa, Chuck served as a Senior Project Manager and Scrum Master at ProAssurance Company, a liability insurance provider. He was key in building the PMO from the ground up and authoring the first PM Methodology.

Chuck was also an IT Director, PM Vice President with Colonial Bank and served as a Project and/or Program Manager for EDS (now HP), IBM, and PricewaterhouseCoopers along with managing several large conversion projects with Wells Fargo. His clients included: Massachusetts and Alabama State Medicaid, US Department of Education, US Army, Texas and Alabama State DMVs, and authored proposals for the US Mint, US Postal Service, and NASA. In addition to his expertise in managing and maturing PMO’s, Chuck has a passion for mentoring and training. He served as the Professor of Aerospace Studies at two different universities and as an Adjunct Professor in Business Management for several colleges and universities. He is a volunteer instructor in religious studies at a federal Prison and has written two books. Chuck is a retired Air Force Officer and a veteran of Operation Desert Storm.

Chuck is a PMP and CSM and holds a BS in Business Management from St. John Fisher College, an MBA from Chapman University, and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from the George Washington University.