Cross-Functional Project
Leadership & Delivery
Twenty years of driving complex, high-stakes programs from initiation through closure — across enterprise marketing transformations, technology rollouts, product launches, and multi-team creative productions. Fluent in PMBOK governance, Agile/Scrum execution, and hybrid frameworks, with a track record of consistently delivering on time, on budget, and above stakeholder expectation.
Every Framework, Fully Commanded
From Waterfall PMO governance and critical path scheduling to Agile sprint cadences and SAFe PI Planning, Mark has executed at the highest level across every major delivery framework — choosing and blending the right approach for each program’s complexity, risk profile, and organizational context.
Agile — Scrum Framework
Full Scrum lifecycle ownership: Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives. Backlog grooming with the Product Owner, story point estimation, velocity tracking, and burndown chart management to keep development cadences predictable and teams accountable.
Waterfall — PMBOK Governance
Traditional project lifecycle management aligned to PMBOK process groups: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closure. Scope definition via WBS decomposition, critical path analysis, baseline scheduling, and formal change control through a CCB process.
SAFe — Scaled Agile Framework
Enterprise-scale Agile delivery: Program Increment (PI) Planning, Agile Release Train (ART) coordination, and cross-team dependency management. Aligns multiple Scrum teams to shared Program-level objectives with synchronized sprint cadences and System Demos.
Kanban — Flow-Based Delivery
Continuous delivery management using visual Kanban boards with explicit WIP (Work in Progress) limits, lead time and cycle time measurement, and cumulative flow diagrams to identify bottlenecks and optimize throughput without fixed sprint boundaries.
Hybrid — Waterfall + Agile
Pragmatic blending of structured governance for fixed-scope phases with iterative Agile delivery within execution tracks. Applied where regulatory requirements or contractual baselines mandate PMBOK control while delivery teams benefit from sprint-based flexibility.
OKRs & Outcome-Based Delivery
Cascading Objectives and Key Results from organizational strategy through program-level epics and sprint-level user stories. Ensuring every deliverable traces directly to measurable business outcomes — not just outputs — with regular OKR check-ins and grading cycles.
Sprint Discipline & Backlog Mastery
Effective Agile delivery requires more than posting user stories to a board — it demands rigorous ceremony facilitation, obsessive backlog hygiene, and a team culture of continuous improvement. Mark operates as both Scrum Master and strategic delivery lead, keeping sprint cadences tight, velocity predictable, and retrospective actions actually executed between cycles.
Backlog Grooming & Story Architecture
Decomposing Epics into Features and Features into actionable User Stories with clear Acceptance Criteria and a defined Definition of Ready (DoR). Applying MoSCoW prioritization and WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) scoring to ensure the highest-value work enters every sprint first.
Sprint Planning & Capacity Management
Running structured Sprint Planning sessions using team velocity baselines and individual capacity accounting for PTO, meetings, and interrupt work. Story point estimation via Planning Poker, task breakdown, and commitment to a Sprint Goal that delivers a coherent, demonstrable increment.
Daily Standup & Impediment Removal
Facilitating daily standups that stay focused on the three core questions — what was done, what’s next, what’s blocked — and immediately escalating or resolving impediments before they derail sprint progress. Distinguishing blockers from updates and keeping ceremony time-boxed and productive.
Sprint Review, Demo & Retrospective
Facilitating stakeholder-facing Sprint Reviews that demonstrate working software against the Sprint Goal — not status decks. Running structured Retrospectives using formats like Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, and Sailboat to surface real systemic issues and produce improvement actions with owners and due dates.
From Project Charter to Controlled Delivery
Structured governance is what separates managed delivery from organized chaos. Mark applies PMBOK-aligned program controls — from initial charter and scope baseline through earned value tracking and formal closure — ensuring every stakeholder has the visibility and confidence they need throughout the delivery lifecycle.
Project Charter & Scope Definition
Formalizing project authority through a signed Project Charter that establishes objectives, constraints, assumptions, high-level deliverables, and stakeholder roles. Developing the Scope Statement and WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) to create a decomposed, unambiguous baseline that prevents scope creep from day one.
Schedule Development & Critical Path Analysis
Building network diagrams, identifying task dependencies (FS, SS, FF, SF), calculating forward and backward passes to establish float and critical path. Developing resource-loaded Gantt charts with milestone tracking and schedule baseline that supports realistic, defensible delivery commitments.
Budget Control & Earned Value Management
Developing bottom-up cost estimates, establishing a cost performance baseline, and tracking project financial health using Earned Value Management (EVM). Calculating CPI (Cost Performance Index) and SPI (Schedule Performance Index) to give executive stakeholders early warning of budget and schedule variance before it becomes unrecoverable.
Change Control & CCB Management
Administering a formal change control process through a Change Control Board (CCB) — evaluating change requests against scope, schedule, budget, and quality baselines before approval. Ensuring no undocumented scope is absorbed into delivery and that all approved changes are reflected across project documentation and baselines.
Protecting Delivery Before Issues Become Crises
The difference between a managed project and a failing one is almost always early risk identification and proactive stakeholder alignment. Mark builds formal RAID logs, runs probability-impact assessments, and maintains a stakeholder communication cadence that eliminates surprise from every executive update.
Risk Management & RAID Log
Structured risk identification workshops at project initiation and iterative risk reviews throughout delivery. Maintaining a live RAID Log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) with probability-impact matrices, risk scores, mitigation strategies, and contingency plans — reviewed at every project status meeting.
Stakeholder Mapping & Engagement
Identifying all stakeholders by influence and interest using a Power/Interest grid, developing a tailored Stakeholder Engagement Plan with communication frequency, channel, and content by audience. Maintaining a RACI Matrix to eliminate accountability ambiguity across every work package and key decision point.
Quality Management & Assurance
Defining quality standards at project initiation through a Quality Management Plan, running quality audits and process reviews during execution, and performing quality control through structured deliverable walkthroughs and acceptance testing — ensuring deliverables meet stakeholder expectations before they reach sign-off.
Executive Reporting & Status Communication
Developing cadenced status reporting for executive stakeholders — weekly status reports with RAG (Red/Amber/Green) health indicators, milestone achievement, budget actuals vs. forecast, top risks, and next-period critical actions. Tailoring dashboard depth to audience: C-suite summaries vs. working team detail.
Issue Escalation & Resolution
Maintaining a live issues log with clear ownership, severity ratings, target resolution dates, and escalation thresholds. Ensuring issues are escalated to the right decision-maker at the right time — before they impact the critical path — and that resolutions are documented and communicated across all affected workstreams.
Project Closure & Lessons Learned
Formally closing projects with stakeholder sign-off against the original scope baseline, archiving project documentation, releasing resources, and facilitating structured Lessons Learned sessions. Capturing process improvements and domain knowledge into a reusable project knowledge base that elevates every future delivery.
PM Tools & Collaboration Platforms
Modern project delivery runs on the right toolchain. Mark has configured, administered, and operated the industry’s leading project management, Agile delivery, and team collaboration platforms — building workflows and dashboards that give every stakeholder exactly the visibility they need.
Cross-Functional Teams, Delivered as One
The hardest part of complex program delivery isn’t the tools or the templates — it’s aligning people across functions, time zones, and organizational incentives toward a single, shared outcome. Mark’s cross-functional leadership experience spans engineering, creative, marketing, legal, finance, and operations — building coalitions that deliver without hierarchy authority.
What Working With Mark Looks Like
Whether you need a Fractional PM to own a critical program, a Scrum Master to restore delivery discipline to a struggling team, or a PMO advisor to build organizational delivery capability — Mark brings twenty years of real-world execution to every engagement.
Fractional Project Management
Embedded or advisory fractional PM engagement for organizations that need senior delivery leadership without a full-time hire. Owning program planning, stakeholder management, risk governance, and team coordination from initiation through closure on critical initiatives.
Agile Transformation & Coaching
Guiding organizations through Agile adoption — assessing current state delivery maturity, designing a phased transition roadmap, coaching teams on Scrum/Kanban practices, and building the internal capability to self-sustain iterative delivery beyond the engagement.
PMO Setup & Process Design
Building a Project Management Office from scratch — defining governance frameworks, standardizing project templates (charter, RAID, status reports, RACI), establishing a project intake and prioritization process, and creating a portfolio visibility layer for leadership.
Distressed Program Recovery
Parachuting into failing or off-track programs to conduct a rapid diagnostic — assessing root causes of schedule slippage, budget overrun, or stakeholder breakdown — and building a credible recovery plan with a realistic path to a controlled delivery or structured wind-down.
Toolchain Implementation
Configuring and deploying PM tool ecosystems — Jira project and board setup, Asana or Monday.com workspace design, Confluence knowledge architecture, and Power BI/Smartsheet executive dashboards — built for how your teams actually work, not textbook defaults.
Portfolio Management & Prioritization
Building portfolio visibility across multiple concurrent initiatives — capacity vs. demand analysis, strategic alignment scoring, resource contention resolution, and executive-facing portfolio health dashboards that enable confident investment and prioritization decisions.
Ready to Deliver,
Without the Chaos?
Whether you need a fractional PM to own a critical program, a Scrum Master to restore sprint discipline, or a PMO advisor to build enterprise delivery capability — Mark brings two decades of real execution to every engagement.
© 2026 Mark T. Whitehurst · marktwhitehurst.com