Linking project management with business strategy

Linking project management with business strategy

Project management is becoming an essential aspect all around the world. But, many businesses need help to complete projects successfully owing to a mismatch between business strategies and project management. They require assistance in determining the relationship between business strategies and project management. Alignment is essential to get a competitive edge and meet business objectives. Therefore, project management has grown its importance and is now critical in many firms.

This Explains the 3 key constraints (time, budget, performance) that every project faces. It highlights the importance of project management in navigating these constraints and achieving organizational success.

Constraints Confront Projects

Projects are any temporary activity with a start, an endpoint, and specific performance objectives. Three constraints confront projects:

(1) Time

(2) Budget

(3) Performance

To achieve the organization’s goals, it is considered that the above three constraints need to be fulfilled. Therefore, project management is critical to attaining corporate objectives and is regarded as the organization’s backbone. And it is critical to achieving strategy, company goals, and intended outcomes.

Project Management

Project management uses specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to deliver value to people. Project management has emerged as a critical concern for many worldwide businesses. Many project management implementations have been effective, while others have been deemed a failure. Projects are seen as the organization’s backbone, with success implying a great deal for an organization’s ability to compete. A project is described as a planned set of related tasks that must be completed within a specific time frame and particular costs and other constraints.

Learn a simple 6-step method to define scope, goals, tasks, team, schedules, and implement ongoing evaluation for course correction. Ensure project success from the start!

A Six-Step Technique That can be Useful in Avoiding the Worst Disasters in Project Management

A six-step technique that can be useful in avoiding the worst disasters in project management is:

Step 1: Determine the project’s scope.

Step 2: Establish the intended goal

Step 3: Describe each project component task.

Step 4: Determine the key players.

Step 5: Establish schedules for each project component.

Step 6: Evaluate, revise, and reallocate.

The successful beginning and execution of initiatives are largely dependent on strategy. Many businesses need help with misaligned projects and a systematic approach to aligning project management with business strategy. Organizations are better equipped to achieve their organizational goals by linking their initiatives to their business strategy. Project strategy should be linked to the project’s goals and objectives to achieve its desired competitive position.

Business Strategy

Business strategy is a complete collection of actions or activities that direct the use of a firm’s resources to achieve the vision and goals of the business and provide a long-term competitive advantage. Strategic management involves translating strategy into action to operationalize strategic objectives and gain a competitive advantage.

To ensure that strategies are translated into actions, they must be operational, which includes characteristics such as structuring an organization to support successful performance and enabling success through the way an organization’s various resource areas, such as people, information, Finance, IT, and so on, are managed. As a result, companies that implement their strategic plans may do better in sales growth, profits growth, deposit growth, return on assets, return on equity, return on sales, and return on total invested capital than those that do not.

This guide explores the 3 key strategy levels in organizations: Corporate Planning, Business Unit Strategy, and Operational Strategy. Understand how each level sets direction and contributes to overall business success.

Levels of Strategies are Offered by Different Levels of a Business

However, different levels of strategies are offered by different levels of a business in every organization, including:

  • Corporate Planning:It requires a high degree of strategic decision-making to meet the stakeholders’ expectations.
  • Strategy for Business Units:The goal of this strategy is to acquire a competitive edge for the services and goods provided, and choices at this level are focused on product selection, acquiring a competitive advantage, meeting consumer requirements, and creating new possibilities.
  • Operational strategy:It is concerned with resource coordination and improvement, resulting in the effective and efficient implementation of the business unit-level strategy.

Strategy implementation requires taking activities and accomplishing tasks and should concentrate on how to materialize these strategies.

The following major points must be considered during implementation:

  • Work execution necessitates distributing resources such as finances, people, and equipment. The organizational resources are limited.
  • The implementation phase necessitates the creation of a project-supportive organizational structure.
  • A project selection and prioritization framework guarantee a solid relationship between projects and the strategic strategy.

Managerial challenges include:

  • Connecting project management with corporate strategy.
  • Encouraging individuals to collaborate in developing new ideas.
  • Renew existing strategies.

Aligning Business Strategy with Projects

Aligning the company’s projects to optimize their contributions to strategic goals necessitates a highly coordinated effort. Integration requires a strategy for selecting initiatives based on their value to the strategic plan. Organizations will need business and project management experts to collaborate to achieve business objectives to become more competitive, efficient, and lucrative. Both business and project management specialists will collaborate to connect initiatives with company objectives. The alignment of company strategy with project management is a fundamental problem for every organization.

Such alignments are challenging to achieve because business strategy objectives are only sometimes explicit, adequately articulated, or compatible with project management activities. Misalignment can lead an organization to fall short of its aims and objectives. Understanding the alignment may be one of the most challenging aspects of the project management process. Alignment is a process that requires dominating leadership, top management backing, effective communication, a collaborative work atmosphere, trust, correct prioritizing, technical setup, and a thorough understanding of the business’s operations. To obtain the intended outcomes from the selected projects, the company should be able to develop capabilities and then distribute those competencies to the recommended projects. To ensure that corporate projects are linked with corporate strategy, keep the following in mind:

  • Is the company committed to strategic project management?Most businesses have hundreds of projects running at any given time; therefore, there must be a corporate commitment to the art and science of project management.
  • Is there a policy in place for formally preparing project charters?Because projects are the methods through which corporate plans are implemented, they must adhere to the original business philosophy, strategy, and objective. Project charters are the tool for doing so.
  • Is there collaboration between the business group and those in charge of project implementation?Early engagement of project implementation personnel is required. While this theory appears logical, putting it into practice is difficult. First, corporate planners may choose to prepare without the assistance of considered “outsiders.” Then there’s a good probability that the right individuals are doing something other than brainstorming and assessing the early stages of a business strategy.
Discover how organizations leverage project management to achieve real results. This article explores the key benefits like cost savings, profitability gains, customer retention, and market share increase.

Benefits of Aligning Business Strategy with Projects

Some benefits the organizations include:

  • Saved money and resources
  • Increased profitability
  • Retained customers
  • Increased market share

Prioritizing a project based on its contribution to strategy achievement does not ensure project success. Still, consistent resource allocation is also a big responsibility. Therefore, a significant point to ensure alignment between project management and strategy is as follows:

  • To carry out the suitably chosen projects efficiently
  • Companies must ensure that they can implement the projects and programs.

Therefore, the alignment of projects is strongly influenced by top management.

Why Should Project Managers Care About Business Strategy?

A project manager must be able to connect their project within the larger context of the company to be truly effective. Understanding the basic business strategy is critical to achieving a great outcome. Strategic alignment and delivery should be wider than senior-level executives because the outcomes influence everyone in the business. On the other hand, a project manager should be wholly involved in all aspects of the project, including understanding and being concerned about business strategy.

Discover the crucial link between project management and overall business success. Learn how aligning projects with company goals boosts team morale, strengthens stakeholder relationships, and delivers tangible outcomes.

Why Should Project Managers Care About Business Strategy?

Although it may appear counterproductive to focus on larger goals rather than the project itself, there are many significant reasons why project managers should be concerned with business strategy:

  1. Boosts Team Morale

A team will follow the project manager’s instructions. Connecting your project to a larger company goal offers everyone a feeling of purpose and connectivity. It helps people realize they are contributing to a more significant cause rather than just completing the work. It enhances team morale in this setting because it offers employees a feeling of purpose.

Furthermore, when individuals believe there is a greater good at risk, persuading them to pivot on a project is simpler. Finally, when teams can see the larger picture, they can better recognize when there is a break in activity or when resources need to be reallocated.

  1. Establishes Stakeholder Support

Understanding executive jargon provides you greater leverage when requesting and securing stakeholder support. A project manager will gain more cooperation if they can explain to senior team members how their participation will benefit the organization. Understanding the company’s strategy enables a project manager to structure requests in ways that are more likely to receive approval and favorable feedback. If a project manager can instill value in their team members and senior stakeholders, the odds of project success increase significantly—the greater the level of support, the more likely a favorable result.

  1. Outputs and Outcomes

Business strategy is about taking a step back and looking at the big picture. The traditional approach to project management held that the end of a project was about output, and what someone did with that data was their responsibility. Modern project management requires a professional to analyze the overall company strategy and what will happen with the project’s output when it goes out of your hands. It’s about remaining business-aware throughout the project so that the company’s best interests can always guide it. This awareness is how great employee morale and stakeholder support are achieved. Today’s most effective project managers can relate project outputs to successful corporate outcomes.

Final Thoughts

A good project manager should be familiar enough with their company’s strategy to utilize it to increase team morale and create a broader picture for their team. Once the team is on board, the same interactions may be used to obtain stakeholder support. Finally, the ability to link output to outcomes will guarantee that the project is successful at every step. Project managers and business leaders must formally understand how to establish, explain, and maintain strategic focus. This view will give project execution a new dimension and bring project management closer to being a competitive weapon for organizations. Choosing the right strategic focus at the start of a project and making it consistent with the company plan can help the project succeed and lead to better business results.

Projects offer an excellent opportunity to obtain a competitive advantage and bring value to the firm. Strategic project management is thus essential. Therefore, one of the most critical parts of project strategy is having a sufficient strategic focus.

Lastly, an understanding of business strategy makes for a well-rounded project manager.

Feel free to check out my discussion on this topic with Thomas Walenta in YouTube

For any questions related to your Project Management career, training, and certifications, you can book an obligation free 15 minutes session with me by visiting https://bit.ly/2SbhTOK

You can subscribe to the vCare Project Management YouTube Channel to catch future videos of our Q&A series and certification success stories: https://bit.ly/2YF0wJl

You can subscribe to and follow my podcasts and interviews with Project Management Experts on YouTube at https://bit.ly/2NDY8wd

The Paradox of Project Sponsors to Stakeholders

The Paradox of Project Sponsors to Stakeholders

A project is deemed successful when it meets or exceeds the expectations of its stakeholders. Every project has a unique set of stakeholders—sometimes far too many. Trying to meet all of their requirements is more often an impossible task. Nonetheless, the project manager must deal with all stakeholder situations smoothly because the stakeholders and the people they represent often evaluate the project’s success.

Project Stakeholders

Project Stakeholders

But who are the stakeholders? According to PMI, “Project stakeholders are individuals and organizations who are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected as a result of project execution or successful project completion.”

Stakeholders can be internal or external to the organization that is carrying out the project.

“Project Sponsor” is also a stakeholder, typically an organization executive with authority to assign resources and enforce project decisions. Project sponsors are called internal stakeholders in the project. Stakeholders include the project manager, project team members, and managers from other departments within the organization. Identifying all project stakeholders as early as possible in a project is critical. Leaving out key stakeholders or the department’s function and not discovering the fault until the project is well underway could be disastrous.

Types of Stakeholders

Types of Stakeholders

Types of Stakeholders

There are two types of project stakeholders:

  • Internal Stakeholders
  • External Stakeholders

Internal stakeholders are individuals or businesses whose relationship with a company is determined by their position within its structure. As the name implies, these individuals are involved in a project from the inside. They are as follows:

  • A project sponsor
  • An internal customer or client
  • A project team
  • A program or portfolio manager
  • Management
  • Another team’s manager of the company

External stakeholders are those interested in a company’s operations. Still, they do not necessarily have a role in the decisions of the business. However, they can influence success or failure based on their vested interests. They can be just as powerful as internal stakeholders. These stakeholders are not directly involved in the project but are affected by its outcome.

  • An external customer or client
  • An end-user
  • Subcontractors
  • A supplier
  • The government
  • Local communities
  • Media

Characteristics of Stakeholders in a Project 

  • When contributing to a project, stakeholders have varying levels of responsibility and authority. This level may change as the project progresses. It can range from one-time contributions to complete project sponsorship.
  • Some stakeholders may also actively or passively undermine the project’s success. These stakeholders require the project manager’s attention throughout the project’s life cycle.
  • Stakeholder identification is a continuous process throughout the project’s life cycle. Identifying them, understanding their level of impact on a project, and meeting their demands, needs, and expectations are critical to the project’s success.
  • Just as they can positively or negatively impact a project’s objectives, stakeholders can perceive a project to have positive or negative outcomes.
  • A project manager’s most important role is managing stakeholder expectations, which can be challenging because stakeholders often have different or conflicting goals.

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is the process of organizing, monitoring, and improving relationships with stakeholders. It entails systematically identifying stakeholders, analyzing their needs and expectations, and planning and carrying out various tasks to engage them. In addition, a good stakeholder management process will allow them to coordinate their interactions and evaluate the status and quality of their relationships with various stakeholders.

A critical component of running a successful project is developing and maintaining positive relationships with the affected communities and other stakeholders.

Investing time in identifying and prioritizing stakeholders, as well as assessing their interests, provides a solid foundation on which to build the stakeholder engagement strategy. In addition, good stakeholder management includes ‘business intelligence.

Benefits of Stakeholder Management

Benefits of Stakeholder Management

Benefits of Stakeholder Management

  • Build Reputation
  • Competitive advantage
  • Corporate governance
  • Risk management
  • Social license to operate
7 Principles of Stakeholder Management

7 Principles of Stakeholder Management

7 Principles of Stakeholder Management

Clarkson Centre created the seven principles of Stakeholder Management for Business Ethics under the leadership of Max Clarkson. The Clarkson Principles are, in many ways, “meta-principles” that encourage management to embrace specific stakeholder principles and implement them according to the norms.

  1. Managers must acknowledge and actively monitor all legitimate stakeholders’ concerns and consider their interests in decision-making and operations.
  2. Managers must listen to and communicate openly with stakeholders about their respective concerns and contributions and the risks they face from their involvement with the corporation.
  3. Managers must implement processes and behaviors sensitive to each stakeholder constituency’s concerns and capabilities.
  4. Managers should be aware of the interdependence of stakeholder efforts and rewards and make an effort to fairly distribute the costs and benefits of corporate activity among them while taking into account their risks and vulnerabilities.
  5. Managers should work with other public and private entities to ensure that risks and harms resulting from corporate activities are minimized and compensated appropriately where they cannot be avoided.
  6. Managers should avoid activities that could jeopardize inalienable human rights or create risks that, if clearly understood, would be patently unacceptable to relevant stakeholders.
  7. Managers should be aware of potential conflicts between their role as corporate stakeholders and their legal and moral obligations to all stakeholders and address such conflicts through open communication, appropriate reporting and incentive systems, and, if necessary, third-party review.

Understanding the Stakeholders

A good understanding of the stakeholders is the key to successful stakeholder engagement. In addition, understanding stakeholder concerns and interests can lead to product or service ideas that address stakeholder needs while allowing the company to cut costs and maximize value.

1. What else can you learn about stakeholders to better understand their needs, priorities, preferences, and concerns? Consider:

  • Demographic data- Ensure to engage with a diverse community and stakeholder groups.
  • Social networks- Focus on the important, often undocumented, social connections between stakeholders.

2. Stakeholder Mapping – Stakeholder mapping is the visual process of depicting all stakeholders of a product, project, or idea on a single map. The main advantage of a stakeholder map is that it provides a visual representation of all the people who can have an impact on your project and how they are connected.

3. Salience model – investigate the power, urgency (need for immediate action), and legitimacy (appropriate stakeholders), as well as the interaction or groups of stakeholders that result.

4. Determine stakeholder expectations and compare them to the scope and expectations of the project or organization for which the engagement program is being run. Is there a mismatch in expectations, and how will this be addressed? Consider the following:

  • What information do they need from you, how often, and in what format/channel do they want it?
  • What is their financial/social/emotional stake in the outcome of the work? Is it favorable or unfavorable?
  • What primary motivations will shape their perceptions of your project or organization and their interactions with you?
  • What are their current feelings about the organization and project? Is it founded on reliable data?
  • Who influences their thoughts, and who are they influenced by?

Ways to deal with common stakeholder problems and challenges

  • Stakeholder conflict occurs when different stakeholders have incompatible goals. It causes a “problem” for the company because it can impact its performance and success.
  • Conflict necessitates that businesses effectively manage stakeholder interests. Not all stakeholders are strategically important to the company. As a result, businesses must determine which ones should be prioritized.
  • Potential problems can be avoided by conducting an upfront analysis of who the stakeholders are and how and when to involve them in the project.
Analysis of common stakeholder issues

Analysis of common stakeholder issues

Analysis of common stakeholder issues 

As no two stakeholders are the same, the issues they may introduce into a project will be vastly different. This factor means there could be many reasons why a project encounters stakeholder resistance or the project team struggles to gain traction. Identifying stakeholder issues during the project can help with planning ahead of time and preparing an appropriate response.

  1. Trying to align different stakeholders.

It is generally a good thing to have a variety of interests in the project and its outcome, but having a lot of different stakeholders can also pull the project team in too many different directions. In addition, it can be challenging for project managers to coordinate too many different stakeholders, which could add new difficulties to the project.

  1. Competing priorities between stakeholders

Stakeholders bring their objectives and expectations to the project. However, at least a few of these priorities frequently conflict with or compete with one another. In addition, priorities may vary depending on the department, the role, or the professional backgrounds of the individuals.

  1. Resource constraints 

It’s possible that the team lacks some of the resources they require or that the project is utilizing resources that other stakeholders consider crucial to their projects. Resource competition is common in organizations and can lead to conflict.

  1. Breakdowns in communication

Effective communication between stakeholders and the project team is crucial for everyone to achieve their objectives and for the project to be successful. When there are communication breakdowns, the project may be delayed, or the team may not receive the necessary information. Without deliberate communication, stakeholders might unintentionally hinder the project’s success.

  1. Stakeholders are resistant to sharing information. 

At times, important project sponsors are more focused on their success and fail to promptly or completely provide the stakeholders with the required information. As a result, stakeholders may attempt to disrupt a project unintentionally or on purpose.

  1. Potential implications of conflict with a sponsor

Conflict with project sponsors may have many consequences on the project management, such as these typical ones:

  • The project’s progress is being slowed
  • Reducing the effectiveness and timeliness of decision-making
  • Putting team cohesion in jeopardy
  • Undermining a project manager’s authority
  • Fostering hostility and encouraging uncooperative behavior
  • Creating a fearful environment for other stakeholders
  • Obscuring the project’s vision
Methods for dealing with common stakeholder conflicts

Methods for dealing with common stakeholder conflicts

Methods for dealing with common stakeholder conflicts

  1. Stakeholder analysis 

Stakeholder analysis can offer insightful information and guidance, just as project managers must carefully examine resources and specifics. It can be helpful to respond appropriately by taking the time to consider how stakeholders affect the project’s progress.

By conducting a stakeholder analysis, one can learn how to control expectations, channel stakeholder influence toward project objectives, and deliver the information and updates that stakeholders expect from their team.

  1. Identify stakeholders

One must first identify the stakeholders to analyze them effectively. List every stakeholder that comes to mind, then include more individuals and organizations as necessary. As stakeholders, all parties involved in the project, those with authority over it or an interest in its success, should be listed.

  1. Prioritize stakeholders

The list of stakeholders can then be ranked according to impact, interest, and power. For instance:

  • Key stakeholders: This first group heavily influences and controls the project. This group is frequently accurate for executive leadership at the company.
  • Primary stakeholders: The project immediately affects the key stakeholders. This pack may include team members, departments, and internal or external clients who stand to gain from the project’s outcomes.
  • Secondary stakeholders: The secondary stakeholders are those who play a supporting role, are indirectly impacted or have a less significant stake in the project.

Understand the key stakeholders

A few stakeholders are usually critical to the project. Key stakeholders invoke more power and may have a more significant stake in the project’s success than primary or secondary stakeholders. For example, key stakeholders could include their boss, company executives, or team leaders.

Finding the key stakeholders and understanding what they need can help keep the project on track because they may control important resources, have a significant impact on the project, or grant the necessary approval.

Create a communication plan 

With a communication plan, project leaders will be better prepared to manage their stakeholders on the fly and keep the project moving forward.

  • Create your communication strategy based on what the project leader knows about their stakeholders.
  • Keeping track of what the stakeholders require from themselves allows project leaders to stay organized and focused on managing the project.
  • Gaining the stakeholders’ trust is essential once the developed strategy has been implemented. Rather than dictating the project to them, make each stakeholder a priority – as appropriate – and give them space to contribute.

Final Thoughts

Different stakeholders in the project have different expectations. Project managers should look for potentially hazardous situations when those expectations might clash. Then, they must address and resolve the conflict or risk endangering the project and themselves.

Resolving stakeholder expectations conflicts is always linked to project success. Furthermore, using various forms of communication among the project team, such as senior management and stakeholders, increases the likelihood of mutual understanding. These techniques help project managers align stakeholder expectations and reduce the possibility of project distress.

Feel free to check out my discussion on this topic with Thomas Walenta in YouTube

For any questions related to your Project Management career, training, and certifications, you can book an obligation free 15 minutes session with me by visiting http://talktodharam.com/

You can subscribe to the vCare Project Management YouTube Channel to catch future videos of our Q&A series and certification success stories: https://bit.ly/2YF0wJl

You can subscribe to and follow my podcasts and interviews with Project Management Experts on YouTube at https://bit.ly/2NDY8wd