Project-Led Strategic Management

Tracey Richardson, John Lewis, James Marion

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. The solution proposed in this book is a project management framework to advance organizational strategy. In this book, you’ll 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.

Sujets

• Gestion de projets
• Gestion de projet
• Business
• Economics
• Gestion et management
• Project Management

Informations

• Publié par: Business Expert Press
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781952538919
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

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 means—electronic, 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, you’ll 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
Introduction: Strategy Is Hard
Part 1 How Project Management Fits in Strategic Management
Chapter 1 Project Management and Strategy Development
Chapter 2 Components of the Analysis Process
Chapter 3 Governance in Strategic Projects
Chapter 4 Strategy Formulation
Chapter 5 Strategic Choice
Chapter 6 Project Management in Strategy Implementation
Part 2 Implementing a Project-Led Strategic Management System
Chapter 7 The Current and Future State
Chapter 8 Changing the Culture
Chapter 9 Knowledge Management: What Is It?
Chapter 10 Knowledge Management, Project Management, and Maturity
Part 3 Observing the System at Work: A Case Study
Chapter 11 The Everycloud Case
Chapter 12 The Everycloud Alternative History
Chapter 13 Project-Led Strategic Management (PLSM): Summarizing Core Elements
References
About the Authors
Index
Introduction: Strategy Is Hard
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 doesn’t work, they try something else—wasting 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 company—that 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.
PART 1
How Project Management Fits in Strategic Management
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 ( Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 Strategic planning versus technical projects
What Is a Project?
A project, by formal definition, is a temporary endeavor that is unique, has a defined beginning and end, is complex, employs resources, and produces deliverables. Project management is the application of practices that seek to ensure that the required project deliverables are produced with the appropriate scope, on schedule, and within the constraints of the budget. The simple definitions of project and project management betray little evidence of its historical placement within the domain of R&D and technical management. Yet, the roots of project management are planted firmly where the processes are deemed to pay the largest dividends. The creation of technologically complex deliverables is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty thereby requiring intensive management focus and novel management methodologies. Further, research and development endeavors are often described as exercises in discovery that may fail to converge in the absence of close management. In the information technology domain, software and system development efforts include components that must be identified, specified, developed, and integrated. Such activity occurs in the context of moving targets that take the form of changing standards, shifting client requirements, a