M T Brackett bracket logoThom BrackettClarity · Alignment · Action
Selected work & impact

Real challenges.
Shared progress.

These are the kinds of situations where I do my best work: ambiguity, competing perspectives, changing technology, and a room full of people who need to move forward together.

CASE 01 / 05

Facilitation · Technology delivery

How do you create a realistic plan when everyone’s work depends on everyone else’s?

Making dependencies visible across 100+ stakeholders

In a two-day Program Increment planning event, I helped coordinate a complex room of teams, project managers, and product owners around a shared picture of the upcoming work.

My approach

Teams placed features on a wall-sized timeline and connected dependencies with visible lines. Rather than relying only on a slide deck, participants could walk the plan, challenge assumptions, and resolve conflicts together.

What it made possible

The event surfaced hidden inter-team dependencies and supported more realistic planning. Just as importantly, the shared visual became an artifact teams could continue using after the session.

What I took from it: Make the work visible, and people can solve problems they couldn’t see before.
CASE 02 / 05

AI enablement · Learning design

How do you help people use AI thoughtfully instead of merely giving them access to a new tool?

Making AI practical for everyday work

As part of enterprise AI enablement work, I designed and taught practical AI and Microsoft Copilot learning experiences for technical and nontechnical colleagues. I also participated in organizational AI champion and innovation efforts.

My approach

I focused on real workflows, contextual prompting, iterative refinement, responsible use, and the role of human judgment. Demonstrations connected AI to the work people already needed to accomplish.

What it made possible

The work created approachable ways for colleagues to explore AI and gave them reusable habits for putting it to work. My emphasis was never on hype; it was on useful application.

What I took from it: AI should make work clearer, not just faster.
CASE 03 / 05

Facilitation · Team effectiveness

When people have job titles but different assumptions about their responsibilities, how do you reduce friction without prescribing every answer?

Turning role confusion into shared ownership

During an organizational shift toward Agile practices, teams were unsure how their existing roles mapped to new responsibilities. Some work was duplicated; other work fell between the cracks.

My approach

I gathered perspectives ahead of time and used structured conversations, including 1-2-4-All, to let participants name gaps, test assumptions, and define responsibilities together.

What it made possible

The teams left with clearer expectations and a shared understanding of their working roles. The solution was theirs, which gave it a better chance of being used.

What I took from it: Clarity works best when the people doing the work help create it.
CASE 04 / 05

Delivery leadership · Operational improvement

How do you move delivery forward when priorities compete, work piles up, and cross-team dependencies stay hidden?

Improving flow when the work gets stuck

Across enterprise IT and delivery leadership roles, I have helped teams look past the mechanics of a framework and focus on the actual flow of work.

My approach

My approach combines visualizing work, examining work in progress, mapping dependencies, and discussing practical metrics such as throughput and cycle time. The goal is a useful conversation, not a dashboard for its own sake.

What it made possible

The value is greater visibility and more deliberate decisions about where to focus. I also bring earlier experience leading IT operations and managing major technology changes across multi-site organizations.

What I took from it: A framework is a means. Better outcomes are the point.
CASE 05 / 05

Change leadership · Speaking

What changes when leaders get curious about resistance instead of trying to push through it?

From resistance to ownership

My exploration of motivational interviewing grew from years of coaching and facilitating change without relying on positional authority. I developed the topic into a CincyDeliver 2026 speaking session.

My approach

I draw on open questions, reflective listening, autonomy, and the distinction between telling people why they should change and helping them explore their own reasons.

What it made possible

This perspective shapes the way I coach, facilitate, and approach difficult conversations. It also gives leaders practical techniques to discuss change with respect and curiosity.

What I took from it: Commitment is stronger when people have a voice in creating it.

Examples are summarized at a high level to respect employer and participant confidentiality. Where a result is qualitative, it is described as such rather than assigned an invented metric.

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