There's a lot you need to know when you're plotting the development of the U.S.' largest phone company, as John Diercksen has been doing since June.

At any given moment, he and his staff may have 200 to 300 projects of varying sizes they need to follow. How do they do it? "We have a very rigid tracking vehicle," says Diercksen, who is , Verizon Communications Inc.'s senior vice president of strategy, development and planning. "For lack of a better word, it's a scoreboard."

Not one they'd recognize at Madison Square Garden, though. Verizon's scoreboard charts ventures, investments, acquisition opportunities and a host of other initiatives addressing everything from advances in Internet telephony to new regulatory mandates. "We literally have reporting mechanisms that track, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, projects that come in," Diercksen says.

Previously head of investor relations for Verizon, and before that president of its directories arm, Diercksen started at the company back when it was still called Nynex. He reports to chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and works closely with CFO Doreen Toben. He also heads the company's corporate leadership council, which includes Seidenberg; Toben; controller Dave Benson, who previously handled development; and other top operating and corporate-level executives.

Along with following up on internally generated leads, Diercksen fields plenty of pitches from outside, ranging from the "bizarre" to "things we want to take a look at." About 40 people work under Diercksen on Verizon's M&A, strategy and business development teams, with another 40 or so at the wireline, wireless, international and directory business units also playing important roles.

On all of the projects, Diercksen explains, it's important to collaborate with, rather than direct, the business units. "It's not one of these things, 'I'm from corporate. I'm here to help you,'" he says. The wireless unit, for example, is handling the response to the new FCC rule letting wireless customers keep their phone numbers when they switch providers -- a development that could drive up customer churn in an already-competitive industry. The leadership council, meanwhile, will assist wireless in what Diercksen calls "a sanity check" on the strategy and its costs. - Chris Nolter

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