James Marion - Project-Led Strategic Management

Project-Led Strategic Management

Project-Led Strategic Management

Project Management Solutions to Develop and Implement Strategy

James Marion
John Lewis
Tracey Richardson

Project-Led Strategic Management: Project Management Solutions to Develop and Implement Strategy
Copyright Business Expert Press, LLC, 2021.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 250 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2021 by
Business Expert Press, LLC
222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017
www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-95253-889-6 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-95253-891-9 (e-book)

Business Expert Press Portfolio and Project Management Collection

Collection ISSN: 2156-8189 (print)
Collection ISSN: 2156-8200 (electronic)

Cover image licensed by Ingram Image, StockPhotoSecrets.com
Cover and interior design by S4Carlisle Publishing Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India

First edition: 2021

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

Description

Strategic management is very well documented in business books and in the literature, but that does not make the task any easier. Because formulating and implementing strategy is so taxing, and the environmental signals are so intangible, strategic planning is a responsibility that is easy to avoid. To complicate the matter even more, when deciding on an organizational strategy, the well-being of employees, shareholders, and customers is at stake. The solution proposed in this book is a project management framework to advance organizational strategy. Project management has a long success record of organizing the complex, intangible, and high-risk activities associated with planning, developing, and implementing complex systems. In this book, youll find not only a description of how use the project management framework to advance strategic management, but also a case study that illustrates the positive impact.

Keywords

strategy; project management; governance; knowledge management

Contents

Strategy by far is one of the most difficult activities for the practicing executive. It requires the application of significant brainpower. Strategic thinking can sap the energy from any executive because of the impossible volume of variables to consider. When deciding the strategy of the company, the well-being of employees, shareholders, and customers is at stake. The information considered in strategic planning is often ambiguous and intangible. To make an analogy, consider the example of an airline pilot attempting to follow a course through a violent thunderstorm and monitoring the cockpit dashboard while blindfolded. In spite of the challenge, the difficulty, and the focus required to make strategic decisions, it is the fundamental responsibility of the executive to make those decisions and to frequently course-correct along the way. While doing so, there is always the danger that some tiny detail will be missed, resulting in a failed strategy and undesired outcomes. Because formulating and deciding upon strategy is so taxing and the environmental signals are so intangible, strategic planning is a responsibility that is easy to avoid. It is far easier to simply do rather than think about what to do. This is precisely what some companies do. They try something, and if it works, they do more of it. If it doesnt work, they try something elsewasting time and money along the way (while avoiding the effort of thinking in the process!). In short, nothing is more difficult, challenging, and taxing than taking in the array of environmental signals, analyzing them, thinking deeply about them, and, finally, making the leap from the conceptual to the practical in strategic implementation. Also, because environmental signals and competitor and customer moves occur continuously, it is often unclear when to embark upon the development of strategy or how often to do it. It should be unsurprising then that a taxing responsibility involving multiple variables and intangible and shifting data within unclear time horizons is rarely done well.

What to Do about It...

The proposed antidote for the crushing difficulty associated with strategic planning and implementation is process and structure. Such an approach offers the possibility of reducing the inherent ambiguity of the effort and reduces the need to think about questions such as What should the company be doing, why, and when does this need to be decided?

The intangibility and ambiguity inherent in strategic planning and implementation has parallels in activities such as requirements collection and analysis for software and systems development. Such activities carried out within the realm of information systems are by their nature intangible, often miscommunicated and misunderstood, and often gotten wrong. Software and systems development have gradually improved via the implementation of process and structure. One of the key elements of such structure is the project management framework. Project management has a long success record of organizing the complex, intangible, and high-risk activities associated with planning, developing, and implementing complex systems. What is strategy development but requirements collection and analysis for a companythat is implemented through the development of the company software of people, processes, communication, and structure? Could not the close and focused management practices afforded by the same project management processes employed within intangible, software-intensive knowledge work also be applied to executive-level strategic analysis, formulation, and implementation? This book says yes and explains how.

Project management has long been viewed through the lens of technical management. From its formal beginnings in Department of Defense projects in the 1950s, project management practices have continued to fill the need for a comprehensive set of processes that aid managers in dealing with the natural complexity associated with product, technology, and systems development. Consistent with this view is the observation that many schools continue to offer project management degree programs from within schools of engineering or information technology. What gets lost in the project management as technical management perspective is the natural fit observed between project management practice and the process of strategy formulation and implementation. An understanding and appreciation of this fit may be developed by clarifying how the elements of project management practice align with the generally accepted practices of strategic management. It could be argued that the analysis, formulation, selection, and implementation of strategy are naturally complex in much the same way as technology projects. Strategy is the result of the firm attempting to make sense of the chaotic macroenvironment and to marshal the moving pieces of the company to attain and to maintain a competitive advantage. This complicated effort requires the close management that project management practice can provide ().