The strategy needs to be enabled with Project Management.
Dr. Glenn Agung Hole
Honorary Professor | Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship, Economics & Management | Tax & Corporate Advisor | Columnist | Mentor | Former CEO & Executive Leader | Public Speaker
The world has never had so many qualified project managers because they are certified in one project tool after another. Despite this, the error rate of failed digital transformation projects has never been higher. Scientific research shows that as much as 87% of all digital business transformations fail. This has happened despite a significant increase in skills development within project management competence. How is this even possible that the gap has only grown in the last few decades at the same time as competence and certification of project managers has taken place? From my simple perspective, this is primarily about a lack of strategic competence and understanding. It is of little help to be certified in one project tool after another if you need help understanding the strategic implications of the project. A good project manager must understand the company's capabilities from a strategic point of view and understand the impact of the changes made or not made in a project.
Throughout a career of 25 years, I have held roles as both chairman and CEO and, finally, as a transformational executive. In all the larger projects I have been able to contribute to together with many other talented people, there needs to be a greater understanding of strategy and the ability to connect the change journey to the company's overarching vision, goals, and strategy.
The strategy needs to be enabled with Project Management.
I am now talking about strategic project management. It concerns how a project may benefit a company's efficiency and strategic plan. It is the process where one can enable the project's strategic plan and understand its outcome. In other words, strategic project management is about forming clear links between the projects and the company’s strategic objectives. The premise of strategic project management is that the project needs to underpin the company's strategic vision, goals, and strategy. A well-executed project is of little help if it does not contribute to the company's overall goals and perhaps, in many cases, goes in the opposite direction.
Therefore, from my perspective now as a management consultant and where in recent years, I have entered academia as an associate professor in digital business transformation, I believe that to succeed in project management, one must be able to connect the project to the strategic plan of the company. Project Management isn't just about the process of project-managing big and important tasks; it’s about designing and managing the project portfolio to ensure that it supports the overall strategy of the company. Strategic project management is the success key to executing a strategic plan.
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Strategic Projects vs Operational Projects
As mentioned above, strategic projects need to support the strategy; of course, you may have operational projects that are vital parts of delivering your day-to-day business, which, although essential, aren't part of moving the organisation forward - and that's how to tell the difference between the two: if it supports an Objective in your strategy, it's a Strategic Project. The critical thing to note is that strategic projects in this context can be manageable - all your big projects should be strategic. Still, you may have many small to medium projects that are, in their way, crucial to delivering on the company’s objectives.
What is the difference between strategic project management & project management?
There's much overlap between traditional and strategic project management. That's because the 'strategic' part of the phrase essentially talks about applying a 'strategic lens' to the company’s existing portfolio of projects.
That means one must still apply traditional project management skills and processes to strategic project management. Still, initially, project management teams need to manage the broader business aspects of their projects to better support and align with organisational strategy rather than just being concerned with meeting standard project management issues - time, budget etc. It is good that project managers are concerned with doing things right. But this is not what it is about at all. It's about being able to do the right things rather than everything having to be right from the start. I have met many project managers who are so focused on doing things according to what they have learned in a project management course and certification course, and yet the project fails, and they are just as surprised. “But I did everything by the bookâ€. “But what good can I say when you overlooked the big picture and weren't concerned with understanding this in the context of the business's overall strategy? Yes, but I did everything in the bookâ€; the answer is often, “yes, you probably did, but that's not what project management is aboutâ€.
The project manager needs to make sure the projects support the company objectives. If not, there is no value in the project. In addition, getting the company's employees on a journey of change will take much work. Time and time again, I have seen significant resistance in a business precisely because the industry has yet to explain the project’s significance and what this will contribute. If employees do not understand the connection, getting the people in a business to move in the same direction will also be challenging. But that's another topic for another time.
Competence is about motivation, not age. Social sustainability must be the foundation we build both a secure digital society and cognitive recilience/security.
2 å¹´Thank you Dr. Glenn Hole, Ph.D. for inviting me to share my thoughts on this, in my view- "survive or perish" approach to the challenges digitization of society presents us with. What needs to be said, and understood by all is: It doesn't matter if your business is 100% analog! Everything around you is increasingly being digitized, you must adapt to survive. 100% analog projects, processes, industry, business etc. must relate to some kind of digital strategy forward. I have mentioned my frustration regarding a lack of functional concepts/terms that can help us communicate better in a exponential digital transformative world. I "borrowed" the term ELASTICITY from Macro economics, and combined it with organizational concepts/terms like culture, change etc. This made sense to me, and pointed to a required property for leaders, and organizations in general, to meet the challenges of digitization and the "new change-management". You point to the crucial point Dr. Glenn, the intersection between knowledge, experience and the ability to think "outside the box". The "old way" of project managing is outdated. Try replacing rigidity and outdated thinking with elasticity and innovation. Elastic culture/strategy =>functional process.
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2 å¹´Thank you for sharing
Awareness | Quality | Efficiency & Better Together Leadership
2 年Thanks for a great post! Context - Customer needs are easily forgotten, especially when everyday performance and delivery feels like the most important. Work that focuses on mid-term and long-term perspectives are not something that can concrete be ticked of the to-do box - as that work never ends… but the strange ting - this ?intangible work? is the most fun and interesting work!
Change Leadership, Maintenance Management, Continuous Improvement & LEAN Enthusiast??
2 年Dr. Glenn Hole, Ph.D., as you specify; doing the right things (order), and then doing the things right (correctness) - is a major/key factor for succeeding. But, to link the theoretical and the practical aspects of a project, there must be a presence of leadership (not just ?management?)/ change leadership with a basic understandig of all strategic factors (e.g., dependencies, connections and consequences, human factors and continuous considerations throughout the project as well). In my mind all kind of projects involve some kind of strategy and change, but not all these certifications/courses focus on that part. And if project-staff don’t understand key factors, and don’t ensure an alignment with company policy/goals, then the project and its outcome will may be worthless - or even cause deeper difficulties? Maybe it’s a ?non-presence? of this deeper understanding and/or competence of changes that cause so many people/projects to fail…? ??????♂?
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2 å¹´My main thought is that project as method is not fit for digital transformation, or complex, unpredictable problems in general. Projects have an implicit assumption of predictability. In particular about the timeframe, but leaders will expect to know the cost and required resource allocation and a description of how. The nature of complex problems, like transformation, sustainability and innovation, is unpredictable. When we add technology as an element, many traditional projects become way more complex, and the situational landscape when we start the project and end the project may have changed dramatically. We simply cannot know how we will solve them, and thus even less cost and time. That said, we definitely need leadership and structures. But projects is a construct from another time, for another time. "Agile projects" is for me only a way of trying to fit a mindset for solving complex problems into a mindset for complicated (but predictable) problems. The main issue seems to be leaders who really don't understand the nature of complexity explained by e.g. Stacey and Cynefin models and how we actually solve complex.