Strategic Project Management

There is a strategic component of project management that cannot be disregarded. A project may meet the functional requirements, the projected schedule, and the cost projections, but what does it actually do for the organization? What is the value added from this effort, not just to your department, but also in meeting the organization's objectives? Even though the project may have been justified financially, what was the net benefit to the organization? If the project was justified by some qualitative data, what was the benefit to the organization? Some projects will be approved because they must be accomplished and there may not be a quantitative or qualitative justification, but the benefits must be defined in terms of the total organization.

Dr. Aaron J. Shenhar suggested that the current dynamic business environment requires taking a strategic approach to project management. Although Shenhar's research was directed to technology managers, it applies to all organizations regardless of discipline. The strategic framework of project management focuses on creating competitive advantage rather than just meeting the immediate requirements. This strategic approach applies to academia, government, industry, and not-for-profit organizations.

You ask how competitive advantage applies to academia, government, and the not-for-profit world. Academic institutions compete with one another, there is competition within government for funding projects, and not-for-profit organizations must split a limited pool of money. Today, more than ever, these organizations need to dedicate their limited resources to projects that make a difference, not just projects that may be interesting to explore.

Strategy is often discussed in broad and somewhat vague terms. Too often strategy includes plans and actions and decisions to achieve specific outcomes. Too often strategic directions are wishes without benefit of resources and appropriate management infrastructure. In simple terms project strategy involves a project perspective, direction, and guidelines on what to do and how to do it to achieve the best results. Shenhar's approach to strategic project management relies on six basic principles:

1. Leadership. The project manager takes total responsibility for results. If the project involves the introduction of a new product the project manager's responsibility ends when the customer is satisfied. A project manager's responsibility for a research study on any topic in any organization ends when the final decision is made as to the findings of the research.

2. Strategy. Define the competitive advantage of the product, process, or service and articulate a winning strategy; determine what it will take and how it will be accomplished.

3. Spirit. What to do and how to do it must be described in the context of what the organization wants to be—the vision. That vision expresses the value of the effort.

4. Adaptation. All projects are not the same. Managers need to assess, classify, and adapt their project management style to the project requirements. The style will be different if the project crosses national boundaries. The style and practices will be quite different for a project including only a few people. The assessment process should vary by orders of magnitude in each of these situations. Each presents different levels of uncertainty, complexity, and pace.

5. Integration. Sometimes every activity has been completed as expected, yet the system doesn't function. Sometimes every participant made major contributions, worked diligently, and met the required expectations, and yet the system under consideration failed. Why? Probably because all the activities weren't adequately integrated. Don't lose sight of the fact that the devil is in the details.

6. Learning. Organizations will have a difficult time meeting expectations if everyone must begin the project management journey at the bottom of the learning curve. Organizational learning is a continual process of recording and publicizing the new that has been learned and then summarizing it into an easily accessible database. Organizations are doomed to repeat the same mistakes if they don't develop some sort of mechanism to capture the learning that occurred.

Shenhar's strategic approach takes a broader look at project management. It asks the question: If this project meets all of its requirements, what does it really do for the organization? What are the real benefits? You have probably worked on projects as a professional that had no impact on the organization. Your management may have considered it a success because you met all the requirements, but it really didn't add any value to the organization.