Jack Skeels

Jack is a Senior Program Consultant, Coach and Business Strategist, with a deep understanding of human dynamics/behavior, program management, organizational transformation and change, agency operations, finance and leadership. He is a talented communicator and engagement leader with a demonstrated ability to develop and manage large-scale integrated (strategy, creative and technology) programs.



Jack started in technology in the 1980's when he was running development projects on a wide range of platforms using rapid prototyping methods and short (two-week) iterations. In the 1990's he focused on technology team transformation and enablement, with a focus on information architectures and the semantics of data. His 65+ person consulting company, now owned by Modulant, made the Inc. 500 in 1996 and 1997.

After receiving his MBA at the USC Marshall School of Business, he went on to lead teams in information security, computer-based education, healthcare technology and supply-chain automation at RAND corporation. After RAND, Jack went on to lead teams using eXtreme Programming, Scrum and, while the lead director at Sapient Los Angeles, Sapient's SA3 integrated iterative methodology for cross-shore interactive projects.

Jack believes that project managers, as they are commonly used by organizations, probably cause more project failures than they solve. Not for lack of trying, but because the organizational pathologies of an organization usually all end up being pushed down to the PM -- many PM jobs are pretty much impossible to succeed at, given all of the other factors.