On course. On schedule. On track.

What would it be like if your company ran as efficiently as a high-speed train? With a top-notch program management office and talented program managers at the helm of complex cross-functional initiatives, you can eliminate competing deadlines and missed milestones, and ensure your journey to success is smooth.

the Book

Don’t let your company run off the rails.

A large company spread across multiple internal organizations, time zones, and projects can be a little like a train without a conductor—moving, but prone to confusion, communication gaps, and at risk of veering off the rails.

If your organization is starting to flounder amid competing deadlines, strategies, and missed milestones, it’s time to invest in your very own business conductor: a program management office. Get On Track is your essential field guide to building, staffing, and running a top-notch PMO, by software industry executive and program management specialist Paula Dieli.

Filled with essential tools, insights, and real-life case studies from her experiences in building and running PMOs for companies such as Zendesk, Adobe, and Macromedia, this is a first-of-its-kind handbook on when, why, and how to incorporate program management into a company. Aimed at both business leaders and program managers, this book shows you how to:

  • Organize, fund, and brand a PMO within a company
  • Set success measures, create schedules, and plan programs efficiently
  • Manage issues and risks effectively and know what to do when signals get crossed
  • Develop powerful and enduring relationships with key people
  • Harness the superpowers of successful program managers to stay on track and on schedule

If you’re serious about meeting corporate objectives and creating an environment of continued success and achievement, a PMO isn’t just a no-brainer: it’s a critical component in ensuring you stay on track and hit your strategic goals reliably, on time, and with finesse.

What others are saying

A great program manager doesn’t run boring status meetings—rather, they add real value to the business. Paula Dieli has built and scaled teams that excel at program management. Get on Track is an insightful reflection from all of her experience.

Amanda Kleha

Chief Customer Officer, Figma

Paula Dieli has written a must-read primer for anyone running a fast-growing organization. Chaos and failure are too often the parents of a program management function. This delightful guide, filled with experience and best practices from a proven authority, deftly captures the essentials of PMO creation, execution, and success.

Adrian McDermott

President of Products, Zendesk

Paula Dieli brings years of practical wisdom to life in Get on Track, leveraging her experience in successfully building Zendesk’s PMO from scratch and making it a key ingredient in Zendesk’s unprecedented growth and success. Paula provides deep insights and a guidebook on what any fast-growing company needs to put in place to be successful—you simply have to follow it.

Tom Keiser

CEO, Hootsuite

Get on Track presents the qualities of program management done right. Like designing software, elegantly implementing program management processes requires skill, empathy and patience. Follow Paula Dieli’s lead, and you’ll be able to run your program management office with care and efficiency.

Morten Primdahl

Founder, Zendesk

I will be hoarding a stash of Get on Track to give to every founder and leader who asks me for advice on how to scale and execute strategically. Having personally experienced Paula Dieli’s transformative work in building the PMO function for Zendesk, I’m grateful to see Paula share her methodology, frameworks, and best practices in such an actionable and accessible way. If you want to make your most important initiatives successful and your cross-functional teams work well together—not to mention lower your overall stress—you’ll want to read and apply the lessons from this book.

Anne Raimondi

Lecturer in Management, Stanford GSB and independent board director at Asana, Gusto, Patreon, and Guru

Get on Track is a great roadmap for starting up and managing a program management team within a company. Paula Dieli’s real secret sauce is the relationships she builds across an organization and within her team—and here she gives you tools on how you can also lead your organization and team to successfully complete complex projects.

Joe Ferrero

Director of Sales Operations, Databricks

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The Author

Paula Dieli

Paula Dieli is a software industry executive who has spent decades building software products in both Silicon Valley and Europe. Her career has encompassed roles in engineering, product management, program management, technical support, and localization. This experience has given her a rich understanding of how software is designed, developed, localized, deployed, and supported—a blend of skill sets that gives her a unique edge in creating and running program management teams.

Paula’s educational background includes two bachelor’s degrees in computer science and French—skills she combined in her work as a software engineer in France. She also earned an MA in French Translation.

Paula created this book for the business leaders she advises who want to build a top-notch PMO and for program managers who want to excel at their craft. It represents the cumulative experience she has gained in developing the best practices that she still uses today. Paula consults with companies on their PMO journey and mentors many professionals in the software industry.

 

Technology and Engineering Emmy Award

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
December 2013

Part of a team that received a 2013 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for our work on the LikeMinds personalized recommendation engine for video discovery.

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Contact

Interested in learning more about program management or learning about what Paula Dieli can bring to your organization? Use the email form below to reach her directly. And don’t forget to follow Paula on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium to keep up to date with the latest trends and tips on program management.

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