Reducing Project Timelines by 40%
STRIVR | Enterprise VR Technology | 2022–2024
The Organization
STRIVR builds immersive VR training programs for enterprise clients — Fortune 500 companies using virtual reality to train employees at scale. The work sits at the intersection of cutting-edge technology, creative production, and enterprise project management. The clients are large, the programs are complex, and the delivery timelines leave very little margin for error.
The Problem
STRIVR already had processes. They already had timelines. The infrastructure existed — it just wasn't moving fast enough for the clients depending on it.
Clients were saying it directly to leadership: projects were taking too long. And it was showing up in renewal conversations — in accounts that were starting to feel shaky, in the gap between what clients expected when they signed and what they were actually experiencing during delivery.
The problem wasn't that the processes were wrong. It was that nobody had ever stopped to ask whether all of them were still necessary.
The Work
There was no official initiative. No formal mandate. Just a clear problem, a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions, and the relationships needed to get honest answers.
I started by sitting down with the internal teams closest to the work — the people inside the delivery process who knew where things were actually slowing down. I asked simple questions.
Do we really need two rounds of review here?
Is this step creating value or just creating time?
What would happen if we skipped this?
Those conversations surfaced what no process map could show: the steps that existed out of habit rather than necessity, the review cycles that had doubled at some point without anyone formally deciding they should, the handoffs that were adding days without adding quality.
From there I worked with teams to streamline what was already there — keeping what genuinely served the work, eliminating what didn't, and standardizing what remained so it was consistent across every program.
The Outcome
Total project time decreased by 40%. Client feedback on timelines improved. Renewal conversations became less complicated. And the team had a consistent, shared foundation to build from — one that honored the work that had come before it while making delivery more reliable for the clients depending on it.
The lesson I carried forward: the most expensive processes are often the ones nobody has questioned in a while. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is sit down with the people doing the work and simply ask . . . does this still need to be here?
"I really never had to worry about misalignment or missed details when Marissa was on one of my projects . . . It's rare to find someone who's so great at both managing projects and building strong relationships." — Hala Keilany, Customer Success | STRIVR
"She has a unique talent for finding alignment even in the most challenging situations, skillfully guiding discussions toward consensus and shared goals." — Kari Moran, Program & Project Management Leader | STRIVR
