Keeping Projects in Sync with Strategy
How an Organization Can Ensure Alignment
According to Jeff MacIntyre’s article, “The Right Fit,” in PM Network, keeping the activities of an organization leading toward tangible and articulate goals usually amounts to keeping projects in synch with overall strategy. Similarly, developing and normalizing a sense of shared values make it possible to precisely define what the business strategy is and to align the project portfolio to it.
Objectives, Clarity, and Seeing Beyond Return on Investment
Posing “questions about the project’s purpose that transcend revenue generation” (MacIntyre 32) can lead to a greater sense of clarity—often the missing component necessary to keep an organization from losing sight of its business objectives. Moreover, such an arrangement makes it possible to look beyond return on investment toward broader organizational goals.
The truly successful organization will consider its broad purpose, its ultimate goals, without becoming overly fixated on particular projects. This sort of telescopic vision encompasses financial gain as one important aspect (of many) that may define a business, recognizing that an organization is not wholly defined by maximizing profits while minimizing loss.
Starting Early in the Project Lifecycle: Where Profits Meet Goals
On the other hand, profits are unquestionably a fundamental consideration in any business. Keeping projects in synch with strategy will also allow for greater clarity when determining best practices, ultimately leading to increased profitability. So what is the first step toward this synchronization? First steps, not surprisingly, are best taken at the beginnings of projects. An organization can focus on alignment at the initiation of a project and then monitor the process at periodic intervals.
One should take this early step in order to link programs, projects, and overall strategy across the organization. The second step would be to request support from sponsors so that management can understand, enhance, and articulate the entire program and its project life cycle. This would also make it possible to modify assessments over time, ensuring positive forward evolution is actually taking place.
The Importance of Maintaining Sensitivity to Macro as well as Micro Work Environments
The projects within the organization need to be perpetually scrutinized and modified relative to all of these factors. Naturally, this requires dedicated effort on all levels, especially by project leaders and middle management. But MacIntyre claims that “effectively translating and communicating your project's benefits in the language of organizational goals can: leverage support from project sponsors and organizational leadership; strengthen stakeholder engagement; raise [a] project’s profile; and enhance [a] project’s benefits” (33).
Ultimately, an organization needs to be flexible enough to adjust to necessary changes in terms of overall aims, work product, and attendant self-assessments in order to continually ensure productivity and efficiency. Management would want to remain aware of alterations in the industry as well as specific work situations that will affect large internal systems as well as individual initiatives. Understanding the interplay between the industry as the larger organism and the organization is also key.
References:
MacIntyre, Jeff. “The Right Fit.” PM Network. Nov. 2006. Online. Western Michigan University Lib. Internet. 15 March 2009.
Ensuring Alignment Leads to Increased Profits
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