Aligning Strategy with Project Management
The following article is a summary of the session by Michael Porter “Aligning Strategy & Project Management”
Reason of aligning Strategy with Project Management is that “Every Project is Embedded into Strategy”, If not, we wont find the right goals for a project and we wont connect what’s happening in a project with what else in the organization.
Core Concepts of Strategy:
- Think about the whole organization rather than the project or the function.
- How the whole organization fit together.
- How the whole outside environment can affect the organization.
What are we trying to do with Strategy?
We may trying to be the best! To have the best product, to be the best manufacturer, .. etc. Actually, there’s no best, it only depends on the customer segment you are serving, you may be the best for one customer segment and the worst for other one.
Rather than trying to be the best at all, Strategy is about “how to be unique, to deliver Unique Value to your Customer Segment”.
One of the common mistakes is confusing between Goal and Strategy, Strategy is about how to meet the Goal and how organization competes to position itself. Also, Strategy isn’t the vision or mission statements, it’s a set of choices of how to compete.
Profitability:
There are two ways to make the organization profitable, and It’s hard to make both of them in the same time:
- Ability to make High Price, via making distinguished product with very high quality, unique features, unique user experience, … etc.
- Ability to make Lower Cost, via making good quality with basic features, .. etc.
Successful Strategy:
Has unique Value Proposition to the customer, via answering the following questions:
- What are our Customer Segments, as you can’t be the best for all customer segments.
- What are the specific Customers’ Needs we need to meet?
- How will we Price our product/service?
Competing to make better Value Proposition, via making better Operation Management. As following operation management best practice will lead to make Competitive Advantage of the organization.
Trade-offs, to deliver unique value, you need to choose what not to do, the trick is to make customers not happy! Not your customer but the other customers, as you can’t be the best for all.
The Strategy can’t be Secret, the answers of what’s the value proposition, what are the customer segments and what are their needs, must be understood in the whole organization, and must be continually communicated. So, the strategy should be tested every day!
What program and project management do is Embedded into Strategy and program managers should not be passive recipients of what top management deliver about ideas of the strategy, but should help making a two way process of understanding and developing the organization’s strategy.
