PROFILE Consultant and lecturer on software product development and leadership. Was Senior VP, Software Engineering at EMC Corporation responsible for development of turnkey storage management products. Formerly, an independent consultant in the areas of leadership, engineering processes and productivity, and project management. A 28 year career with IBM as a technical leader, successful engineering project manager, and executive. Led a series of major projects to create what is today the core of IBM's large systems' software. Managed key products in operating systems, networking, distributed processing, computer applications, hardware development, and business automation tools. Innovator in project management techniques and the automation of business processes. Holds numerous patents in these fields. Recognized expert in software design, parallel, multi-site engineering management, and computer system performance. Named an IBM Fellow in recognition of world-class technical achievements. B.S and Ph.D. from M.I.T. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Ph. D. Thesis earned ACM's Grace Murray Hopper Award. Career highlights include...
• proposed and led design of IBM's TSO, today's most widely used mainframe time sharing system.
• overall project manager and lead designer of first MVS release, IBM's mainframe operating system.
• managed the creation of DPPX, an operating system for the IBM 8100 distributed processing system.
• managed IBM’s networking products and the CICS transaction processor during their early years.
• co-invented a proven technique to improve team productivity in projects by an average factor of 2.5.
• pioneered a new technique for automating business processes directly from their definition.
• managed the transition and growth of an acquired software company from startup mode to acquiring and supporting a large number of customers with more than $100 million in revenue.
• 1981 ariticle on MVS included in recent 50th anniversary issue of IBM Technical Journals (see www.research.ibm.com/journal/50th/software/ )
• co-creator and leader of the “Jensen-Landmark-Scherr Leadership Course” at the Simon School of Business, University of Rochester (NY).
EXPERIENCE
Consultant and Lecturer (2001 to present)
Consulting with various companies on software development issues. Specicalizing in handling breakdowns in the software development process. Was chief technical advisor to a startup developing a new approach to personal and group management software. With Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus Michael Jensen and Landmark Education, created and led a 40 hour course on leadership at Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. This course has been presented for four consecutive years, and a version of it is now being presented at other universities. (see Scherr, Allan L. and Jensen, Michael C.,A New Model of Leadership(August 22, 2007). Harvard NOM Working Paper No. 920623; Barbados Group Working Paper No. 06-02. Available at www.ssrn.com/abstract=920623 )
EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, Massachusetts (1994-2000)
Senior Vice President, Software Engineering (May, 1994-June, 2000)
Managed a 220 person software engineering team responsible for storage management software for open systems and Windows/NT. Products included the highest performance large database backup solution in the industry. During 1997-2000, this engineering group delivered 25 major releases and features 100% on time and with good quality. In 1995, managed the integration of this engineering group from an acquired company into EMC. Was part of the executive team that created EMC’s Open Storage Group, a business that produced $200 million revenue in the first year of operation and now is the basis for the majority of EMC’s revenue.
Independent Consultant, Weston, Connecticut (1993-1994)
Conducted several major consulting engagements including an extensive audit of the development processes of a major telecommunications equipment supplier, leading the design of a business process reengineering tool, advising Fortune 500 clients on business process automation, and acting as an expert witness in a dispute between a large software services company and one of its customers.
IBM Corporation, Armonk, New York (1965-1993)
Vice President, Technology, IBM Consulting Group (August, 1991-June, 1993)
Managed groups responsible for creating and/or acquiring leading edge methodologies, tools, and know-how for IBM's new worldwide management consulting business and acted as its CIO. Focus was on business process re-engineering, information technology strategy and planning, and quality. Created and led a project for business process definition and automation tools (see IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1, 1993, pp. 80-98).
Vice President, Architecture & Development, Application Solutions (1987-1991)
Led the technical staff for IBM's application software development groups. Responsible for the application layer of the Systems Application Architecture (SAA). Directly managed product development organizations in Boca Raton, FL, Bethesda, MD, and Princeton, NJ.
• created a standard development process for application software.
• negotiated the agreement with Easel Corp. bringing EASEL, which became the standard SAA screen design tool, into the IBM product line.
• set the direction for distributed/client-server processing in SAA (see IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1988, pp. 370-383.Link to article).
Director of Development Operations, System Products Division (1983-1986)
Headed the central development staff of the IBM division responsible for midrange systems: System/36, System/38, System/88, Series/1, 4300, and 8100. Technical leader of project to consolidate these systems by using common hardware and software building blocks. Elements of this project led to the creation of the AS/400 and the 9370 systems.
• invented a new object-oriented operating system design.
• created a new approach to managing teams to produce quantum leaps in productivity (see Human Resource Management, Vol. 28, No. 3, Fall, 1989, pp. 403-424, also available on www.ssrn.com/abstract=655822 ).
• named IBM Fellow in recognition of technical accomplishments in Operating Systems, Distributed Processing, and Data Communications.
Director of Programming, System Communications Division (1980-1982)
Managed the Kingston, NY, Raleigh, NC, and Hursley, UK programming centers responsible for communications and networking software. Products included CICS, VTAM, TCAM, NCP, and network management.
• established LU6.2 as the common SNA system to system protocol for communications between IBM products.
• established direction and plans for "alien" protocols in SNA networks and extended network addressing.
Manager of Distributed Processing Programming, System Communications Division (1977-1980)
Led the design and later the entire development effort for DPPX, the new operating system for the mid-range 8100 system. (now successfully running on S/390 hardware)
• shipped first release on schedule with the first hardware. This release included new FORTRAN and COBOL compilers, sort, time sharing, application development tools, presentation management, a "mini-CICS", and extensive communications capability. Software was done in Kingston, NY, Raleigh, NC, Santa Teresa, CA, and Hursley, England.
Manager of System Design, Data Processing Product Group Staff (1975-1976)
Led the technical staff for the executive managing all of IBM's high-end system product development.
• co-led the task force that identified the emerging trend toward the use of distributed processing using mini-computers in large enterprises (see IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1978, pp. 324-343.).
• led a study of economies of scale in computer hardware systems that demonstrated the relationships between cost, performance, architecture, and technology.
• coordinated, after the demise of the FS project, the re-deployment of programming resources back to the S/370 products and MVS.
Manager of MVS System (1971-1974)
For the original release of MVS, directly managed the system design, project management, performance, and system build and testing; and indirectly managed code development in 20 other organizations in 12 different locations in the United States and Europe.
• shipped 1.8 million lines of new and modified code for a total of 4.2 million lines of code three years after the project was funded.
• technical leader of project (see IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400.).
• key technical participant in the eight member task force that defined the requirements and technical approach for the MVS project.
Manager of Time Sharing Design and Performance (1968-1970)
Managed the design and performance groups that built the original TSO (“Time Sharing Option”) prototype, established its feasibility, and led the detailed design that created a time sharing system for OS/360.
• created the proposal and initial performance analyses demonstrating the feasibility of a time sharing facility based on and compatible with OS/360 using standard S/360 hardware (see AFIPS Conference Proceedings, FJCC 37, 1969, pp. 113 -117.).
• established the feasibility of several key techniques necessary to transform OS/360 into a virtual storage based system.
• created a rigorous methodology for managing performance in a complex software development project (see Statistical Computer Performance Evaluation, Academic Press, 1972, pp. 57-72.).
OTHER • Ph.D. Thesis, An Analysis of Time-Shared Computer Systems (published by The MIT Press, 1966)
• Lead architect of the virtual storage hardware for the S/370 line and participated in the analyses leading to the invention of cache memory.
• Profile featured in 30th anniversary issue of Communications of the ACM, (October, 1987, pp. 824 ff.).
• Fellow, IEEE
• listed in Who's Who in America and American Men and Women of Science
EDUCATION • SB, SM, Electrical Engineering, MIT, Sept., 1962; Ph D, Electrical Engineering, MIT, June, 1965.
• IBM Advanced Management School, 1970.
• Brookings Institution, 1980.
• University of Michigan, Global Leadership Program, 1989 (see Fortune, 6 November 1989, pp. 71 ff.).
PERSONAL Married, 3 daughters.
Interests: aviation (commercial pilot license), music (piano and guitar), photography, model railroading