Shane M. Dixon.
I am the guy you call when the portfolio is stalling, the ePMO is failing, and leadership needs a delivery system it will actually use.
Latest podcast: Lead with Legacy, Ep. 43 →
What I am building right now.
Running the portfolio and ePMO practice. This year: a 14-hospital health system, a specialty finance firm, and a food bank running a USDA program at 30x pilot scale.
Building the federal bench. SDVOSB / WOSB, four prime bids authored end to end, and a four-firm USACE teaming construct with us self-performing 40%.
PMI Authorized Training Partner instructor. Program leaders at Motorola Solutions, and PMP cohorts through PMI Southern Nevada, Oklahoma City, and Alamo.
Four podcast episodes this year on why PMOs die, what AI actually does to coordinator work, and how to make the call without perfect information.
Booking keynotes, panels, leadership workshops, and short 1:1 advisory for COOs, CFOs, and PMO heads.
Start a conversation →The short version.
Consultants pitch you slides. I roll up my sleeves and take your problem on as my problem. When you hire me, your cause becomes my cause. I do not chase credit. I chase outcomes. If the portfolio finally delivers and my name never comes up in the board recap, that is a good day.
Leadership calls me when the portfolio is a mess. When the ePMO everyone signed off on is not governing anything. When two enterprise programs have been dormant for a year and nobody noticed, because nobody was reporting. That was month zero at Appalachian Regional Healthcare, 14 hospitals. Twelve months later, 100% of their strategic work was moving through one intake and onto a weekly executive RAG.
I have built two enterprise PMOs from nothing. One from the sixth employee of a consulting firm up through ISO 9001 and CMMI Level 4 to 21 people. One inside a health system in 26 weeks on a fixed fee, after which I sat in the interim AVP seat until they hired the person who runs it today. Before that, two decades leading programs to $200M and portfolios to $62M. Marine Corps first. Then seven years in the Army National Guard.
I walked into that health system arguing for a PMO with real authority, including the ability to say no. The sponsor who hired me shut it down in month two. He knew the culture better than I did. A directive PMO with no line authority is a bluff that gets called. I lost the argument, then I taught his version to my own team myself. It held because it was his.
I am Managing Partner at Corbeau Tech and Founding Partner at Essix Consulting Group, a dual-certified SDVOSB / WOSB founded in 2021 for federal delivery. I teach for PMI. I sit on the board of First Christian Church. Not looking for a job, but the right operating seat gets a real conversation.
Five things I will argue with you about.
Most PMOs fail because they were built to report, not to decide.
A PMO that produces status is a cost center. A PMO that changes what gets funded next quarter is the only kind leadership keeps.
A dashboard that flatters the portfolio gets believed exactly once.
I compute health against baseline, not actuals. It flags earlier and more often, and it makes the board uglier. That is the point.
Capacity decides which half of your portfolio is fiction.
Model it at phase level so it is still accurate in month eleven. The precise task-level model nobody maintains is worse than none, because it is confidently wrong.
Force buys compliance and destroys buy-in.
I have used the hammer twice in twenty years: do it my way for six weeks, then we go back to yours if you still want to. Nobody went back.
AI is not replacing your coordinators. It is the hire that never happens.
Two contracts, zero coordinator hires, the work pulled up the org chart and done in a fifth of the time under my supervision. That is what adoption actually looks like.
Five things leadership teams call me for.
Where you can hear me talk shop.
If you host a show on portfolio governance, PMO leadership, transformation, federal delivery, or what AI is doing to delivery work, and you want a guest who will not hedge, ping me.
“The deliverable was just top-notch and included everything we needed and more. It was a thing of beauty.”
Stephanie Mendenhall / Chief Financial Officer, Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma
“Strategy dies if it lives on a PowerPoint. The ePMO is the execution arm that helps us reach the outcomes our communities need.”
Caleb Cobane, MHA, RHIA, PMPVP, Strategy Development & System Integration, Appalachian Regional Healthcare
Roles, ownership, and a few battle scars.
Let’s talk.
The first conversation is a diagnosis, not a pitch. Engagements are fixed scope, not open-ended retainers. And if you do not need me, I will tell you that on the first call.
CEOs, COOs, CFOs, and boards with a portfolio that is not delivering. Podcast hosts who want a guest who will not hedge. Y’all are welcome. I read every note.
Two numbers, so nobody wastes a first call.
Portfolio diagnosis. One week, fixed fee, $10,000. I read what you have, sit in the rooms where decisions stall, and hand you a one-page answer on what is actually stuck and why. Act on it without me if you want. Most people do not need more than this to know.
Embedded, six months, exclusive to your program. $225,000. That is the seat I held at a 14-hospital system while we built the ePMO from nothing. The full build there ran $755K over 26 weeks, fixed fee, delivered on the number.
Everything in between is priced on the first call, not the third. Fixed scope. Milestone billing. My bench included in every number. No retainer unless I am in the seat.