About Chris Cognasso
Why this exists
Most governance frameworks describe what good looks like from the outside. I wrote this one from the inside, for the person handed the mandate to build governance in an organization that has never had it, with stakeholders who already have opinions about what it should be.
Over 25+ years I have stood these functions up from zero and stabilized stalled, high-stakes programs across insurance, financial services, federal, and Fortune 500 environments. Everything in the twelve steps is something that either worked or cost me something to learn.
Where the method came from
Established the EPMO across a $1.6B+ portfolio of sixteen programs, each over $100M. Built the methodology, the tooling, and the training, including the executive reporting behind $500M+ in annual congressional approvals. The function did not exist before it was built. Steps 1 through 3 come mostly from this.
Promoted AVP to VP, PMO and Enterprise Portfolio Management. Scheduling lead for the migration of more than 3 million home loans with zero data loss during the Washington Mutual acquisition. Steps 7 and 8, on tollgates and authorization, are what that environment taught.
Engaged as a consultant and embedded as a program manager within the FGBS Tax PMO. Led defined workstreams: requirements stabilization, security and credential remediation, M365 introduction, and cutover governance. Built a shared requirements library assembled with Anthropic Claude and carried it to adoption through deliberate change management. The AI posture across this site comes from here.
A $100M DMV modernization. A $4.8M SaaS migration inherited after a prior program failure with zero vendor trust, rebuilt through governance design and change leadership. Step 1, on listening before proposing anything, is not a philosophy. It is what that work required.
What I am doing now
EPMO Program Manager at a mid-size insurance carrier, helping establish and mature portfolio governance from the inside: the operating model, stage-gate governance, investment scoring, and an 84-project portfolio dashboard. AI-accelerated, human-directed. Waypoint is written alongside that work, not from memory.
What I am looking for
PMO and portfolio leadership. EPMO stand-ups, governance builds, and portfolio turnarounds. Permanent, contract, or interim.
If any of this is useful to you, or you want to talk about a governance problem you are living with, reach out directly.
Reach me
Email: ccognasso@comcast.net
Phone: 360.951.7433
LinkedIn: chris-cognasso
Full background: chriscognasso.com
PMP · PMI-ACP · Prosci · CSM · SAFe 6 · SCPM