CHAPTER 7

Survey and Findings: How Organizations Move Strategy From Corporate to Projects

The previous case studies provide a rich qualitative context in which to explore how companies do, in fact, move from corporate strategy to program and project strategy, and whether they do so as we hypothesized in Chapter 1. Since the data sample presented is obviously small, and to provide a bigger data sample, we carried out a survey of the way members in several PMI European chapters moved from corporate strategy to program and project strategy.

A series of thirty-two questions were developed and used to examine the processes, practices, and people issues involved in moving strategy from the corporate level to projects. This studied covered business management, strategic management, portfolio management, program management, and project management. The questionnaire was sent out to PMI Chapter members in Europe to obtain their views, based on their experience and knowledge. Seventy-five responses (about 50 percent from UK) were received from people, at various levels of seniority, in small, medium, and large enterprises in a diverse range of business sectors, such as aerospace, automotive, IT, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, retail, transportation, publishing, academia, and consultancy. The response rate—about 2 percent—is too small for the results to be considered as statistically valid, but it can be taken as indicative.

A word of caution is advisable before looking at the survey findings. They are potentially quite revealing, for they suggest that many project managers typically work in strategy, program, and value management (or believe that they should)—much more than the PMBOK® Guide (Project Management Institute 2000) or the literature in general would suggest. The word of caution is to be aware that the respondents were presumably some of the most professionally conscientious members of PMI, so we do not necessarily get a balanced view of practice; also, to an extent, there may be some ambiguity in what the respondent means by some of the terms (e.g., Value Management). Nevertheless, we believe the findings are fascinating.

The findings of the survey, summarized in Boxes 1–5, cover the following areas:

1. Business management
2. Program management and portfolio management
3. Project management and project strategy
4. Value management
5. Project management competencies

Most items in each box have a Population % figure that indicates a percentage of the total number of organizations represented in the survey; for example, in Box 1 Item 1, 67 percent of the organizations in the survey indicated that they used a generic business model. Or in Box 2 Item 3, 85 percent of organizations surveyed use programs to implement change.

The first major area the survey explored, shown in Box 1, was the extent to which processes were used within organizations and to what degree was the continuity of strategy achieved through them.

The survey findings suggest that:

• Many organizations (most of which are process-oriented) use business enterprise models (or equivalent) that incorporate project management as a key business management process. This suggests that there is widespread recognition of the importance of project management within business.
• Almost all process-oriented organizations have business-planning processes for moving corporate goals and objectives to project strategy.
• A high level of interconnectedness between the business and project management processes ensures that there is a high degree of continuity of strategy as it is cascaded through the organization.
• A hierarchy of objectives and strategies, more often from the SBU level rather than the corporate level, is used widely for structuring strategy and provides a high level of visibility within an organization.

Box 2 shows how organizations perceive and use program management and portfolio management. The extent to which they moved strategy through programs to projects was the second major area investigated.

The survey findings indicate that:

• Some form of portfolio management is implemented fairly widely, but it is perceived to be more about managing groups of projects than selecting and prioritizing them. (This is contrary to the views found in the literature.)
• Program management is generally defined as the management of a portfolio of projects sharing a business objective of strategic importance and (probably) utilizing shared resources.
• Programs are most often seen to comprise a combination of groups of projects or a number of separate projects.
• Most organizations implement program management to manage integrated sets of projects. Many use integrated project teams to manage the resources in an integrated manner for the sets of projects.
• Program management usually implies the management of business benefits. A benefits process is generally formally identified within the overall program management process.
• Non-financial measures are frequently used to track benefits.
• Program management usually implies the aggregation of risk and it is normal practice to formally identify risk aggregation as part of the overall risk management activity.

The third area investigated—project management and project strategy (shown in Box 3)—followed naturally from program management. The survey focused on identifying the key strategy inputs and some of the project management activities, which were employed to create project strategy.

The survey findings imply that:

• Many organizations use integrated project management processes to manage project strategy; most contain processes for project strategy management and related areas, such as requirements management, project definition, and project scope management.
• Specific corporate, business, portfolio, and program strategy inputs were generally fed into integrated project management processes to develop project strategy.
• Most project management processes deliver program or project plans; many deliver project or program plans and strategy plans; many deliver project or program plans, strategy plans, and other project management plans; and most deliver other project management plans.
• Project strategy is managed dynamically by many organizations using project management processes.
• The roles and responsibilities for developing, implementing, and updating project strategy are frequently specified in project management procedures and slightly less in project plans.
• Project plans are, in general, formally reviewed at project gates in the project lifecycle.
• Peer groups formally review project plans in many organizations.
• In most organizations it is clear who approves and signs off project strategy.
• In most organizations strategy is expected to be upgraded and reviewed during the development of a project.

The survey also explored two other areas:

• Project value management and its link to project strategy (Box 4).
• The extent to which companies define competencies to manage program and project strategy and incorporate these into competency frameworks and job descriptions (Box 5).

The survey findings suggest that:

• The value of proposed project/program strategy is frequently optimized during the evolution of the project.
• Value management workshops at strategic stages in the life of the project are less common.
• Value engineering on programs and projects is not practiced frequently, but it is distinguished from value management.

The survey findings imply that:

• The project management skills and knowledge competencies required to manage programs or projects and develop program and project strategy are generally formally defined.
• Competencies for managing project strategy are linked to personal appraisal and development systems in many organizations. But the linking of project objectives to personal objectives is less common.
• Organization-wide behavioral competency frameworks are frequently used.
• Competency-support programs for program and project managers are widely used.