ThreeWill Hero – Clint Padgett

Helping Rembrandt Paint Masterpieces

A couple of years back, Atlassian introduced us to another company based out of Australia that they thought would be good for us to talk to because of similar cultures. The company was Customware. I had skype conversation with their CEO, Rob Castenada, and about midway through the conversation he mentioned something pretty insightful…”You guys are like us, you help the Rembrants of the world to paint their masterpieces.” For us, we help the most successful software companies in the world build software products that run on or are integrated with SharePoint. In the case of Customware, the focus on Atlassian’s products as the platform.

I could say the same thing about the company that this month’s ThreeWill Hero leads. Unlike ThreeWill and Customware, the company doesn’t focus on software development. Instead, they focus on the business of executing successful mission critical projects. Their medium is a proven process. Their clients they serve are the world’s most successful companies. Their company name is apropos, Project Success, Inc. (or PSI for short). This month we wanted to recognize the company and leader of the company, Clint Padgett.

The Book On Successful Projects

Before we get too far, I just want to point out that Clint actually wrote the book on successful projects. Below is a link to his book on Amazon.com.

How Things Got Started

We started working with PSI long before we “bet the boat” on SharePoint. We worked together to update what they call the Project Success toolkit. This toolkit, which extends what Microsoft Project does as an add-in, helps support the principles of the Project Success Method. There was a lot of time in design spent understanding what was needed to support the process.

Real Partnerships Are Made During Difficult Times

What is perhaps most interesting about the PSI/ThreeWill story is that at one point we came to an impasse. There was a time on the project where both sides decided to stop development. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another project in our history where we came to such an abrupt stopping point. After a bit of time backing off from the situation, we came together and put together a plan to begin working together again.

This actually helped me mature about what partnering means…going through a difficult time you find out from both sides the intent. Do they walk? Do they come back and look for the way to bring the divide? Do they put the sweat in to make things work or do they just play lip service? This is what you learn during difficult times.

What We’ve Learned About Clint

Tommy shared this with me about Clint and I think it’s spot on:

Clint has been a great client through good times and bad. He is a man of integrity. Because of our long standing partnership and the trust that has been built up we have been able to achieve great things together!

Tommy doesn’t use the word integrity about people lightly. What happens over the course of working together five plus years is you understand the intent of the other party. You find out if they are really interested in a mutually profitable partnership. Clint has been a man of his word and he can be trusted and he we have no doubt that he and his company have many years of continued prosperity. We look forward to working together over the next ten years and beyond.

Huge Shout Out To Crissy Tevis

It’s official, we have found the world’s best product owner. Her name is Crissy Tevis (scroll to midpage). She spends more time at the ThreeWill office than most associates…we love seeing her and we’re thankful that she takes on her role so responsibly. This is another sign of Clint being great leader, he attracts and builds a team of high contributors like Crissy.

Eric Bowden, who has been working closely with Crissy recently, had the following to share:

You couldn’t ask for a better product owner. Crissy is always part of the solution. She is eager to dig into real problem solving and understanding the pros and cons of feature design, while at the same time having vision for the product level roadmap and features.

And every once and a while, she makes sure that Clint does his job…(smile)

A Word From Clint

After hearing he was a ThreeWill Hero, Clint shared the following…

I deeply appreciate being selected as a ThreeWill Hero. My experience with ThreeWill has been nothing short of phenomenal. They are incredibly good at what they do and we reap the benefits during our product development collaboration. I am looking forward to leveraging their SharePoint expertise as we further integrate the Project Success Toolkit with Project Server. By the way, if you’ll send Crissy back to us for a while, I promise to return her before the next phase of development starts!

Clint, thanks again for being a ThreeWill Hero and we look forward to seeing great things from you and your team at PSI…