Why Project Managers Need to Understand Business Strategy and the Strategic Management Process?
1) Introduction
This report is produced to study the importance of aligning Project Management with Business Strategy and Strategic Business Process. Fundamentally, all Project Managers must have full comprehension of the bigger picture of an organization Business Strategy and its functional level game plan. This would help them with project operational level decision making as well alignment of projects alignment with corporate mission. .
The report will be giving general analysis of inter relevance ie:- top –bottom and bottom – top approaches of strategy pyramids and the extent of a Project Manager’s role in Strategic Management Process that includes strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation.
2) The Strategy Pyramid
2.1) Business/Corporate Strategy – Overall managerial game plan
Business strategy is the fundamental and the most important part of a Strategy Pyramid as it outlines the broader action plan for long term organization’s strategic objectives. It involves approaches crafted by the Senior Management group targeting successful business performance taking into count internal as well as external environmental factors. A well-crafted business strategy focuses on how to attain long term competitive advantage.
2.2) Functional Strategy- Managerial game plan
Functional Strategy outlines the game plan in line with the business strategy at business units or department in an organization. Here, the strategies are more refined to a narrower scope to each business units to complement each other and most importantly the strategies must ensure that the overall targeted competencies are strengthened. The business heads units must maintain two ways communication in crafting the strategies to avoid any uncoordinated or conflicting strategies. Project managers being at Operations level, rely heavily on strong and well-coordinated functional level strategies to produce successful outcome of key project equilibriums ie:- time, cost and
This report is produced to study the importance of aligning Project Management with Business Strategy and Strategic Business Process. Fundamentally, all Project Managers must have full comprehension of the bigger picture of an organization Business Strategy and its functional level game plan. This would help them with project operational level decision making as well alignment of projects alignment with corporate mission. .
The report will be giving general analysis of inter relevance ie:- top –bottom and bottom – top approaches of strategy pyramids and the extent of a Project Manager’s role in Strategic Management Process that includes strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation.
2) The Strategy Pyramid
2.1) Business/Corporate Strategy – Overall managerial game plan
Business strategy is the fundamental and the most important part of a Strategy Pyramid as it outlines the broader action plan for long term organization’s strategic objectives. It involves approaches crafted by the Senior Management group targeting successful business performance taking into count internal as well as external environmental factors. A well-crafted business strategy focuses on how to attain long term competitive advantage.
2.2) Functional Strategy- Managerial game plan
Functional Strategy outlines the game plan in line with the business strategy at business units or department in an organization. Here, the strategies are more refined to a narrower scope to each business units to complement each other and most importantly the strategies must ensure that the overall targeted competencies are strengthened. The business heads units must maintain two ways communication in crafting the strategies to avoid any uncoordinated or conflicting strategies. Project managers being at Operations level, rely heavily on strong and well-coordinated functional level strategies to produce successful outcome of key project equilibriums ie:- time, cost and