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We recently sat down with Matt Isbell, senior project manager, to learn more about his experience as part of Perficient’s Microsoft practice and involvement in our PRISM Employee Resource Group (ERG). Continue reading as he shares key insights into his project management responsibilities, advice for colleagues, and his passion for taking group fitness classes.
Hi Matt, thank you for meeting with us today. Could you share more about your role at Perficient?
I joined Perficient through an acquisition in 2012. At Perficient, I’m a project manager and team leader. I manage large technology projects, often helping clients move to new systems that make their business more efficient. From a project management perspective, I typically spend my day meeting with delivery teams, reviewing work progress, facilitating escalations, helping remove blockers, and just generally moving projects forward.
I also co-lead the PMO team within the Microsoft Business Unit (BU), and so I have regular one-on-one meetings with the folks on my team. I work with business analysts, project managers, and solution managers. It’s my goal to understand how they’re doing from a career perspective. In my downtime, I also help them brainstorm by working through issues or conflicts. Outside of my usual meetings, I focus on project work, auditing project performance, tweaking project plans, brainstorming solutions to make my project more efficient, and creating reports on my projects.
Additionally, since 2019, I have worked alongside several members of the marketing team on designing and rebuilding the company website. We launched the current version of the website in 2020, and I have helped maintain it ever since. Collaboration with content, design, and development teams has been important to keep the website updated. We’ve had some impactful updates, and we released a large update this year to completely redesign the main navigation and add new sections to the homepage. We regularly keep it alive and refreshed.
What advice would you give to colleagues who are starting their career with Perficient?
In terms of advice for folks, diversifying your workload and getting involved in different activities is essential to see what you enjoy. The worst thing that can happen is you find that you just don’t like doing something, and you can move on to something that you do enjoy.
I’m also actively pursuing getting a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in my spare time. In our group, we typically focus on learning the different types of technologies through Microsoft certifications. As a project manager, it is still super valuable to understand the ins and outs of the projects. Project leaders are here not only to help organize the delivery teams, but also to challenge some of the assumptions that are being made in the solutions that we’re delivering. The more you know about the technology that you’re implementing, the better you are suited to do your job.
Read More: Perficient Prioritizes Professional Development With Award-Winning Growth for Everyone Program
Whether big or small, how do you make a difference for our clients, colleagues, communities, or teams?
I’m organized and detail-oriented, and I make a difference by helping others build clarity in their work. An increasingly important part of my role is working with the Microsoft BU leadership to improve overall operations and delivery quality. Over the last several months, I have spent time standardizing methodologies such as the ways that we manage projects within the Microsoft BU. For example, we recently established a handbook for Perficient’s Microsoft project leaders. We built new operations and procedures within the BU for managing, staffing, and reporting on utilization and providing more clarity into data than what we’d had in the past.
In 2022, I partnered with our Delivery Excellence group to develop and roll out the risk management and escalation frameworks company wide. That was a huge effort that took an entire year. We established a group of 30 people who provided input and supported the change that we were implementing. We developed job aids and templates and then delivered the materials through a series of presentations to company leaders. That was a huge effort that I had the opportunity to participate in, and I’m super proud of our collaborative effort.
Read More: Discover Insights From Perficient’s Microsoft Business Unit
Are you involved in any culture groups at Perficient?
I am a committee member of the PRISM Employee Resource Group (ERG). I participated in the group when it was Pride@Perficient, but now that it is a formal ERG, I have supported the leadership team further with my project management skills. I’ve partnered with ERG leadership to organize how we track, manage, and document tasks. We hosted a process improvement session with about 20 folks to plan out how we’re organizing events in the coming year.
It was formally launched in June, National Pride Month, which made it easy to grow. We had fun events during Pride Month, including our Perficient Ball, “10 10 10’s – Celebrating Pride Across the World event and informative sessions like the proper usage of pronouns. Going forward, there’s going to be an ongoing series of social events, like our monthly film club. Pride month was our big launch with a whole series of activities, and I’m looking forward to what’s to come for this ERG.
Learn More: Explore How Perficient Embraces Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
What’s something surprising people might not know about you or your background?
In high school, I wanted to be a pilot. I love flying and even took some lessons. Once I started college, my interest shifted, and I wanted to be an architect. I still love residential design and flying, but I eventually got an industrial engineering degree studying supply chains and engineering processes.
Since the pandemic hit, I got a puppy and embraced the work from home lifestyle. I am usually at my desk by 7 a.m., and I love knocking out a couple of hours of work before breakfast. The Atlanta market has grown tremendously, and our culture has evolved with that. I go into the office once a month for happy hours and team meetings. We had a happy hour just a couple weeks ago, and folks from my team traveled to Atlanta for client planning meetings. While they were here, we decided to take them out and have a good time.
I typically start working early because I attend group fitness classes in the afternoon and have a very regular schedule. On Mondays, it’s a HIIT style class called Warrior. On Tuesdays, it’s body pump. Then, on Wednesdays, it’s a break day but I take yoga. I also do spin occasionally.
I often need to sign off early to ensure I have enough time to walk the dog and get to the gym. That’s how I build a work-life balance in my schedule. If you don’t build your personal and professional calendar together, it’s easy to have one overstress the other. You also need good leadership and a support system to ensure that you don’t get overallocated on project work.
How do we shatter boundaries?
Project management is all about defining boundaries, including the budget and timeline. When I think about how we as an organization shatter boundaries, it’s about exceeding expectations, creative solutioning, and working with our clients to deliver where we can while maintaining the boundaries of our contractual agreements. I’ve been with the same client for 10 years, and most of our recent contracts have been staffing delivery agreements that need project management support. I bring a consulting characteristic to my project management instead of building boundaries around the project.
I’ve worked on several large, multi-year projects, but I’ve also been involved with a smattering of other smaller, well-scoped projects. Most of my large projects are global platform migrations. This extranet project that I’m working on right now is going to take two and a half years. This is a large project where we’re working with each individual client to get them transitioned over. At the end of the day, this is consulting. My day-to-day changes, and that’s really what keeps me here.
Read More: Understand How Perficient Accelerates Growth for the Biggest Brands
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