HVAC Navigator was a strategic project I managed for Johnson Controls. As a very large corporation comprised of dozens of acquisitions, their partners and distributors struggled painfully to simply do day to day business. The goal of this strategy was very simply to make it easy like Amazon for their partners to conduct business.

We aimed to solve this problem by combining all of the disparate technologies used for parts, warranty, orders, support and more into a single portal. This meant bringing together multiple ERP systems, utilizing a single source of data and presenting to users a simple cohesive system.

Key Challenges

• Scope: When brought on, there were multiple areas being attacked technically (creating a single parts list, how to order, etc.) but no cohesive vision. I and my team became responsible for bringing all of the various pieces together and getting executive sign off.
• Resources: The program was littered with talented people, however there was not a single program structure to align them. I took on the responsibility of bringing the teams together, aligning communication and messaging and forming a cohesive team.
• High Profile: This was a multi year project, with my portion alone having a $10M budget. It was part of a large strategic vision and as such had many cooks in the kitchen. The CEO, CIO, multiple VP’s and many managers all had a stake in the outcome. The need for constant communication and updates was critical.

Accomplishments

• Brought together all of the stakeholders into a cohesive, if unofficial, program. As a group we communicated a common message as a united front.
• Delivered initial Go-Live on time and under budget after encountering a laundry list of technical issues. As an agile project we delivered 3 more iterations.
• The project generated a first year of benefit projected at $85M of incremental revenue against the five-year strategic plan.