SC Midlands PMI Chapter Presents: 

Managing Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Projects  

with Robin Scherer and Alvan Turner 

Monday, 16 May, 11:30-1 pm, Midlands Technical College NE - 151 Powell Road, Columbia, SC 29203

Guest Speakers - Robin Scherer, PMP and Alvan Turner, PMP will discuss the fundamental differences between managing application development technology projects and COTS vendor-driven projects.  While the vendor selection and management requires expertise in Procurement, meshing the vendor’s approach with the needs of internal customers impacts all knowledge areas and can be highly challenging. It is the goal of our speakers to help other Project Managers understand these impacts in order to manage COTS projects more effectively.  

Robin Scherer, PMP – Robin has extensive experience managing technology projects in government, financial services and healthcare.  Her expertise in business-driven development and implementation focuses on business utility (fitness for use).  Robin has managed projects using the traditional highly planned, waterfall methodology, as well as loosely planned, iterative approaches (Agile).  Over the past several years under contract with the City of Columbia, she has managed vendor selection and implementation of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions.  In this role, she has noted fundamental differences between managing COTS projects and business application development projects. She looks forward to sharing her experience in helping other PMs manage COTS projects more effectively.
Alvan Turner, PMP – Alvan is an IT professional with a career covering 27 years of analysis, software development, implementation and support. Specializing in the utilities sector, he has worked with premier providers and third parties across the U.S. implementing CIS/CRM systems. Alvan was a partner for eight years with Kamtech Systems, an implementation and software development group. Since 2010, while working with the General & Administrative PMO at Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, he has observed application providers alter their service delivery profiles. This has resulted in a new implementation reality that accompanies Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) applications. Regardless of the implementation methodology used, waterfall or agile, COTS implementations show project managers a new side of vendor relationship management and project teams a new meaning of the term ‘readiness’.