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Kaplan New York Relocation
Included Kaplan Corporate, Kaplan Test Prep, Newsweek,
Slate Magazine and The Washington Post Online
Kaplan Corporate was charged with managing a major
redefinition of the physical locations for the New York
City based companies owned by the Washington Post
Corporation.
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Kaplan Test Prep had multiple leases expiring
and wanted a new and improved facility in which to
consolidate their Operations.
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Kaplan Corporate had to a large extent relocated to
Florida, however they needed a new location for
their 150 plus corporate staff still in New York
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Newsweek had recently been relocated to a new
facility, however The Washington Post wanted to
relocate them to a more cost effective location
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Slate Magazine and The Washington Post Online had
been subleasing space from Newsweek, however they
would need a new location after Newsweek relocated
out of their space.
This was truly one of the most complex projects NewVista
was ever engaged to Project Manage. NewVista
Advisors helped the companies identify multiple
properties, design and build those properties, relocate
technology and move the staff. Within a few
weeks of the first planned relocation, Newsweek was sold by The
Washington Post, completely changing the relocation plan
and project schedule. Multiple iterations of
possible relocation scenarios resulted in defining a
large number of alternate plans and contingency
activities, including communications circuit orders, and
temporary hosting locations. With the final
decisions being made within 2 weeks of the final
possible date necessary to capture key tax incentives,
NewVista needed to drive the project using multiple
shifts, detailed prioritization of activities, and an
"all hands on deck" philosophy. The result was
Kaplan and the rest of The Washington Post New York City
family successfully being relocated in a "seamless"
fashion on time and without any business interruption.
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Client Issues Addressed
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Complexity Driven by Multiple
Separate Businesses with Conflicting
Priorities
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Need to Define Multiple Project
Scenarios, Complex Dependencies and
Significant Risks While Waiting For
Newsweek Sale and Location Decisions
from Corporate
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Extremely Short Timeframe for
Completion
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Conflicting Priorities
at the Project Level and Within
Specific Business Plans
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•Lack
of Dedicated Project Managers and
Teams Within Some of the
Business Units
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Lack of Documentation of the Current
Environment
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Need
to Relocate Datacenters from
multiple companies
and 2000 staff members
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NewVista Advisors Approach |
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PMO Creation: Developed PMO
structure / roles and responsibilities.
Provided PMO Leadership
Project Start Up – Developed:
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Current State Assessment,
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Business Case,
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Acceptance Strategy and
Criteria,
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Performance Baselines,
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Project Plans for Multiple
Businesses and Relocation Scenarios,
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Resource Plan,
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Budget,
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Systems and Staff Relocation Phasing
Plan
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Communication
/Integration Plan
Project Delivery – Led
Development of Data Center Designs,
Vendor
Management, Risk Identification
and Mitigation, Issue Resolution,
Testing, Systems Migration to the New
Datacenter, and Relocation of Staff
Technology
Provided the resources to relocated the
multiple teams and data center hardware
nights, weekends and during small
service windows
Project/PMO Reporting and
Communication:
Spearheaded Project/Stream
Management, Executive Dashboard and
Watchlist, Information Repository,
Internal and External Communications
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Key Differentiators
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“A”
team, with specific
experience on
large Infrastructure
Build-outs and
Technology Relocations
Ability to deliver
resources as needed
when needed
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•Process and Program Management Expertise
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Technology architecture expertise – varied applications, platforms, vendors across business functions
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Thought Leadership within industry standards and best practices
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