Douglas Brown envisions a world where people have the right resources at the right time so they can use their creativity and expertise to achieve remarkable things in their businesses and organizations.
With a Ph.D., and several professional certifications in program and project management and information technology (IT), he is well-versed in best practices.
Douglas has written two books, Let It Simmer which addresses program and project managers, and the forthcoming Simmer Until Done for any individual or organization.
His Simmer SystemSM (www.Simmer-System.com) provides steps for getting the initial situation under control, then moving to a point where complex undertakings such as best practices can become realistic objectives.
Douglas gained the experience to develop his system during his more than 20 years as an internal manager and a consultant working with private sector and government organizations to install, restart or repair business processes.
Some of his more memorable experiences and results include:
– Found ways to conduct training when Army units had almost no funding, including flying them to international exercises in exotic locations.
– Built solid relations and support with officials in towns and counties across Germany during a time when the Soviet Empire, in its last gasps, was stirring up anti-US rallies.
– Found private sector alternatives for providing decent, affordable housing for military families in high cost urban areas, and for government employees (e.g. Park Rangers) in extremely remote areas.
– Built the financial model for the military base closures process.
– Built a revised environmental model that eventually replaced the ineffective Superfund program approach with a faster and far cheaper results-based method.
– Built cost models and associated management practices and data systems to effectively manage NOAA-operated fisheries facilities.
– Performed economic and policy analyses to help large organizations decide on strategies to approach the confusion of deregulated electricity markets.
– Developed the plan to clean a nuclear waste facility, then convert it into a wildlife refuge in a major metropolitan area.
– Developed pollution control and waste management practices for U.S. facilities in foreign countries.
– Helped a major financial services company transition to new products and markets.
– Built process and configuration management processes in a company building a laser-based alternative to compression mammograms.
– Helped a major IT company plan the construction of a global infrastructure.
– Helped a major telecommunication company plan and manage the build-out of a global fiber network.
– Helped a biotechnology firm set up a PPFMO based on critical chain to allow it to outperform much larger competitors by being much faster to market.
– Built one of the most competitive products in the electronic voting market.
– Helped set up PPFM functions in the newly-created Department of Homeland Security.
– Built a full-featured PPFMO at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
– Built a PPFMO that also included Enterprise Architecture at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
– Developed strategies and implementation approaches for mobile computing, enterprise architecture and program management in the Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Federal Aviation Administration, a commercial insurance company, and a truck manufacturing company — all at more or less at the same time.
– Helped build a program budgeting process and an enterprise architecture practice at the Defense Acquisition University.
– Helped build the Defense Department’s cloud services architecture and cost models.
– Managed a project to build a consolidated testing platform for the Census Bureau.
– Built a PPFMO to manage petroleum storage tanks at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
– Built a PFMO to manage the business of IT at an agency within the Department of Justice.
During the course of those engagements, and several years as a federal manager, his business analyses saved millions of dollars by bringing runaway projects and contracts under control. Notable contributions included designing the economic model for military base closures, and modeling a revision of the Superfund process that resulted in toxic waste sites getting cleaned up many times faster.
Douglas is currently the Managing Member of Decision Integration LLC (www.decisionintegration.com), a personal consultancy offering short-term workshops to get initiatives planned and moving.
The son of an international businessman and diplomat, he lived in and visited many places around the world. As he loves to travel, he was fortunate that his assignments as an Army officer included Panama and Germany (where he learned Spanish and German) as well as Asian and Central American countries.
Douglas lives with his wife Lynn in Alexandria, Virginia, where they enjoy good cuisine and the Washington cultural amenities, especially live theater. Other than working, when not walking their dogs or preparing more books, articles and presentations, he spends too much money and not enough time on his boat, Bugbear.