An Unexpected Journey: 20 Years and Counting

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Lessons Learned  

As I reflect back to 2000, the year I became a published contributing author for the then gantthead.com and now ProjectManagement.com, Diane Warren’s theme song to the Star Trek: Enterprise series comes to mind. Taking liberty with those lyrics, I came up with these:

It's been a long road,
Getting from there to here.
It's been a long time,
Can’t believe it’s 20 years.

Back in 1999, I was just finishing up with an assignment in Pittsburgh and heading west to live in Seattle (funny…seems that I had two journeys beginning; never thought about that till just now). It was then that I met Steve Phinney, a Six Sigma Black Belt (now a Master Black Belt) via his review of my book The Helix Factor – the key to streamlining your business. As I remember, he had been in contact with gantthead to provide content for the site. It was his recommending me as a source for them that I met Erin Decaprio, gantthead’s then editorial director, and a relationship was born.

For me, Erin was the soul of gantthead. Her style, upbeat attitude and persuasiveness made working with her a pure delight. (Did you know she published gantthead Development Techniques Pocket Guide in 2002? Check it out!). I was sad to see Erin move on from gantthead in 2011, but she left the editorial management in good hands with Cameron McGaughy, who is a great person to …

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