Welcome to my blog, about me and my role as Worldwide Partner Strategy Manager for the Microsoft Project business

Thank you for taking the time to read this. My name is Doug McCutcheon and I think Project Management as a skill and a job is one of the most interesting things you can do. Why? Because it involves changing things for the good, improving peoples lives whether business or personal and is an extremely stimulating process.

This Blog is one forum where I wish to promote the growth of the Microsoft's Project families licensing business to the mutual benefit of our partners.

Me

This belief led me to a career in Project Management and using the associated tools

Microsoft Project featured heavily through my career and has always been extremely accessible.

Microsoft Project Server to me was an “at last” moment where I could share the information I had created in my schedule in an interactive manner with team members and stakeholders. I deployed Project Server to help deliver both IT and business projects in companies I worked for. Later on after I had joined Microsoft the acquisition of Microsoft Portfolio Server was the icing on the cake, addressing project prioritization and business case construction

At this point, in 2005, I applied for a "blind" advert from Microsoft asking if I was passionate about Project Management and Microsoft tools to help people achieve in managing projects.  I was in New Zealand at the time and was happily enjoying the lifestyle. Anyway I got the job with Microsoft and wow, what a stimulating, interesting environment to work in. The term passionate is thrown around a lot and not something being British I automatically subscribe to, but having been here (Microsoft) a few years I see this as people believing to their core in what they do and as you know from experience this is a good thing. I worked in Microsoft New Zealand in both a Solutions Specialist capacity for Enterprise Project Management (SSP EPM) and the SharePoint arena as a Solutions Specialist in Business Productivity (SSP BP). I worked both the Enterprise and Mid Market segments during this time (a Microsoft way of classifying customers).

During that time I reinforced my desire to stay in the EPM space, so when the Partner Strategy job for the Microsoft business came up I applied, and got it. This meant moving to the USA, which has been a positive experience personally and for my family and let’s face it leaving New Zealand was a tough decision as it is a great country. A double wow, Redmond rocks!

For those interested in my back ground look me up on www.linkedin.com

My Role

Here is the job specification I applied for. I have been doing this for a year now and I would say it still applies + a few extra duties on certification for 2010 and the Project Software + Services strategy.

Summary

My role is to define the overall partner strategy across
• systems integrators,
• independent software vendors
• resellers and
• hosters
and to deliver programs and go-to-market plans that grow partner capacity, accelerate partner wins and drive EPM deployments.
Key Responsibilities include:
1.Crafting global vision and strategy for partner development and engagement to generate revenue for Microsoft Office Project, Project Server and Portfolio Management Server.
2.Creating high-scale programs to evangelize, recruit, and ready partners on Microsoft Project and EPM.
3.Managing the partner ecosystem across GSIs, ISVs, and Resellers to deliver Project and EPM solutions.
4.Supporting product planning efforts in defining gaps in future release value prop and identify and engage appropriate partners to fill these gaps.
5.Defining the core value proposition for each partner type and customer segment.
6.Developing the tools, resources and guidance to enable our worldwide sales and marketing teams to recruit, grow and nurture national, regional and local partners.

Intentions

For mutual benefit, my intention is to allow partner greater access to material, and dialogue to drive the Microsoft Project families license revenue. I will engage with social media such as this and exploit the capabilities of Web 2.0

I hope you enjoy this journey with me.

Doug