the smart pms blog http://thesmartpms.posterous.com Most recent posts at the smart pms blog posterous.com Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:00:00 -0800 Do you take a break in your projects to be creative? http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/do-you-take-a-break-in-your-projects-to-be-cr http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/do-you-take-a-break-in-your-projects-to-be-cr

Strategic project management helps organizations to effectively manage their business strategy to realize benefits. Strategic objectives will be aligned with project execution, therefore projects become a key component to achieve goals and enable benefits that will take the organization to the next level.

When projects are aligned with organization’s strategy and the strategy is well communicated to stakeholders, stockholders and project team members there will be a total engagement. Every member in the organization will be committed to pursue the successful completion of projects.

Although meeting project schedule is important, it is also important to spend some time being creative or innovative.

Creativity meets strategic project management

In 2002, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduced a new concept that allowed engineers and programmers to devote 20%of their time to projects of their own choosing. This meant that employees would spend one full day of their working week on this activity. This concept evolved from idea incubator to Google Labs.

Google Labs consolidates all those projects and enable Google to create new applications or add features to existing applications. Google Maps, Google Docs, iGoogle and Google Reader are a few examples of creative ideas of committed employees with a clear understanding of strategic objectives that had contributed to Google’s expansion.

To continue with this trend, creative employees who had produced the best innovative product or feature are recognized in an annual ceremony and awarded with a giant science-lab breaker filled with colorful jelly beans.

Creative minds unleash their imagination

Company’s greater asset is their talented human capital that can be more creative if they are given free rein to unleash their imagination.

Would the Google innovative concept work in your organization?

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Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:43:00 -0800 Strategic Project Management as a Tool to Achieve Competitive Advantage http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/nogallery-strategic-project-management-as-a-t http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/nogallery-strategic-project-management-as-a-t

Strategicplanning

Current business trends force companies to find the right mix to become more efficient and agile; these two elements are important to achieve competitive advantage, which will result in increasing market share, revenue or efficiency. 

For years, companies around the world have look for how to achieve competitive advantage through a traditional project management approach, this operational approach covers functions and operational controls, which include strict controls on schedules, budgets and resources. The results of these projects have not produced the expected benefits and competitive advantage even when operational controls were met. 

On the other hand, some innovative companies seeking to dominate their business sector are practicing an alternative project management approach and opt for an evolutionary process that will take them from an operational approach to a strategic approach. Under this new perspective, projects will be used as the mean to achieve real business objectives that support business strategy.

Research studies (Brown and Eisenhardt 1998) have confirmed that projects aligned with business strategy will be the foundation to take advantage over their competition and achievement of business objectives. The results suggest that companies choosing to adopt the new approach will require commitment at all levels in order to change the project management paradigm and establish the new way in which projects being undertaken will be aligned to business strategy and reach business goals.

Under this new approach, projects must be dynamic, flexible and capable to adapt to possible changes in strategy or external factors. The project environment, although “mobile", must not lose sight that business objectives should be meet as established at project inception. This new approach should not change the project’s attribute of temporality.

Companies adopting the strategic approach to project management must change the project selection process and establish a "competimeter" which contains project selection criteria as follows:

"Follow the race" is aimed to improve operations and achieving results in the short term. These projects usually allow the company to maintain its market position

"Winning the race” is designed to improve efficiency or effectiveness and the main objective is to increase market share

"Changing the rules of the game" is designed to create a new product or service that will make the company distinct from the others and strive towards the desired competitive advantage

This project classification establishes that project outcome is not a product or service but how to approach the competition and win.

Under the strategic approach, project manager’s role will expand and in addition to fulfilling their traditional functions, project managers will need to step into strategic and leadership roles. The project manager will turn into a strategic professional who will lead project and cross-functional team, will participate in board meetings where decisions are made about starting, continuing or cancelling projects based on business results.

Once the company achieves the maturity level using the strategic approach to project management, projects will be identified during company’ strategy sessions counting with board members acceptance and their commitment to assist the project team when necessary.

Having working with companies transitioning from the traditional project management operational approach to the strategic approach, I had the opportunity to see how the general manager cascaded the new project management approach across the organization. Solid results were achieved during the first eighteen months having all functional areas involved and collaborating in projects towards specific business goals.

Companies willing to set a competitive advantage will adopt the strategic approach to project management and define what to do, how to do it and how to achieve business objectives through project aligned to company’s strategy.

Reference:

SL Brown and Eisenhardt, K. M. 1998 Competing on the Edge, Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA

 

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