Fractional VP of Delivery · Atlanta, working nationally
Most companies have a leader for what gets built and a leader for how it gets built. Very few have anyone who owns whether the two actually deliver together. That's the seat I fill, without the cost of a full-time executive hire.
The problem I solve
AI has made this gap more expensive. Coding tools let teams build faster than IT and Product can agree on what to build. When an AI agent works from a vague requirement, its guess becomes working code across several teams before anyone notices they read it differently.
The risk isn't only building the wrong thing. It's building the wrong thing faster, across multiple teams.
What clients get
A single planning rhythm where trade-offs surface early and are decided with evidence, not escalation.
PMO reporting brought together into one set of predictability, flow and outcome metrics leaders trust.
Living, testable specifications that evolve with the code, so teams and AI tools build from the same clear intent.
The business shapes what's built throughout the quarter, not just at the final demo.
I coach delivery leaders, Scrum Masters, Product Owners and program managers, and develop a permanent successor.
How I work
For two decades Agile taught teams to iterate the code. Now that AI can generate code quickly, the most valuable place to iterate is upstream, on the specification. And the specification is exactly where IT and Product have to meet.
This is not a return to waterfall. Waterfall froze the specification behind approval gates. In my approach the specification and the code evolve together, and real user feedback is allowed to change both.
Intended behavior, verified code and observed outcomes have to agree. When correct code misses the business need, the learning goes back to intent.
Offered as a lean 90-day pilot: one existing team, two features already planned, the tools and ceremonies you already have, and compared against that team's own recent history. Clear stop-or-scale decision points along the way.
| Area | Traditional approach | My approach |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness | Is the work sized and small enough? | Is it testable? Clear acceptance criteria, constraints and interfaces before anyone builds. |
| Dependencies | Team A needs something from Team B by a date. | Teams agree on the behavior between their systems, who owns it and when they'll test it together. |
| Capacity | Faster coding means more committed scope. | Review, integration, security and business validation are planned as real constraints. |
| Done | The code passes its tests. | Specification and code stay aligned, and the result is validated with real users. |
| Review | Check that the work matches the plan. | Study whether the outcome solved the business problem, and adjust both if it didn't. |
Engagement options
Start here
I interview the VP of IT, the VP of Product, PMO leaders and people across delivery, observe a planning cycle, and review intake, backlog and status artifacts.
You receive an executive readout, the cost of misalignment in your own numbers, and a 90-day roadmap with the top three changes.
Discuss a diagnosticI own the delivery operating model across IT, Product and the PMOs: one forum for trade-off decisions, quarterly planning and review, the specification practice, unified executive reporting and coaching for delivery leaders.
A controlled trial of the living specification loop on features that span IT and Product, measured on first-pass acceptance, rework, blocking questions caught early and change failure rate.
For a program already in trouble: stabilize the delivery rhythm, unify fragmented backlogs, map cross-team dependencies and restore executive confidence.
CIOs, CTOs and CEOs tired of breaking the tie between IT and Product.
VPs of IT, Product and Engineering, and PMO leaders.
Mid-market and enterprise companies with multiple teams, often more than one PMO, often adopting AI coding tools. SAFe helps but isn't required.
Financial services, health insurance and healthcare, property and casualty insurance, aerospace and defense, logistics and B2B integration.
Selected results
First Advantage
45%
increase in IT Operations delivery over 18 months.
As Release Train Engineer for three trains and 12 cross-functional teams spanning Salesforce, AWS call-center and mobile work, I mapped the value streams, established the PMO process and unified the customer request backlog into one intake funnel.
CareSource
35%
less blocked work
A biweekly planning mechanism ended recurring War Room escalations. A Shared Services intake process now governs demand across EDI, ESB, D365 and OnBase.
Rollins
600 / 700
backlog items cleared in six months
A maintenance-system recovery delivered for $190K against a $250K budget.
Osaic, consulting through Equillem
+2
workstreams approved
Stabilized an inherited modernization program. My discovery work identified 12+ integration gaps that shaped a new modernization engagement.
Catlin
$77M
Guidewire transformation
Built and led the integration team connecting legacy applications worldwide to Guidewire through an enterprise service bus, with follow-the-sun delivery.
Synchrony
12 teams
100+ people in transformation
Coached one RTE, six Scrum Masters and six Product Owners. Also coached transformations at Verizon Telematics and Anthem, and mentored release train leaders at Cigna.
Why me
I've spent much of my career between the VP of IT and the VP of Product, coordinating the delivery teams and PMOs that serve them both. I still build software today with AI, so my advice stays grounded in what engineers actually face.
Builder
Developer and integration engineer across ERP, EDI and enterprise integration. I know what it's like to get a vague requirement and have to guess.
Technology executive
Director of Application Integration at Rollins: 14 direct reports including managers and business analysts, multimillion-dollar budgets, special projects for the CIO.
Enterprise delivery leader
Solution Train Engineer at Cigna. Release Train Engineer at CareSource, First Advantage, Lockheed Martin (contract) and Osaic.
Fractional VP of Delivery
Bringing that whole path to organizations that need an experienced delivery executive, but not a full-time hire.
Or did output go up after AI while outcomes didn't? Let's talk it through. Thirty minutes, no pitch deck.