VP Strategic Initiatives & Innovation

Catalyst Management Consulting Lakewood Ranch, Florida

gdg@CatalystPM.com

+1.419.424.1164

16 October 2014

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Strategic Thinking for Project Managers

@GregGithens

For Twitter users……

@GregGithens follow me!

Next Monday 7PM Eastern

I am the guest for

Leadership and The Future

Tweetchats

#LeadWithGiants

My Objectives

Help you recognize the value

of thinking strategically, and do it

better

Learn from you

(Are you willing to put in the effort to grow

your strategic thinking ability?)

CEO to Staffer…..

“Bring together our best {Column A} and go and create a plan for {Column B}.”

A B

Strategic

thinkers

Strategy

Critical thinkers Criticism

Agile thinkers Agility

Disruptive

thinkers

Disruption

Systems thinkers Systems

Visionary

thinkers

Vision

Top Three Needs

Think

strategically

Drive change

Understand the parts

of the business and

how they fit together

“The development of project managers needs to change from current preoccupation with learning techniques for the application

of the so-called best practices

-Ali Jaafari

University of Sydney

Project Management Journal December 2003 p 56

to competency for management of both

project and environmental complexity.”

spend more time on

understanding the

context of the situation

spend more time on

deciding on a course

of action

What’s the situation here?

What’s the history?

What could change?

What am I really trying to

accomplish?

What’s the best practice?

What should I do?

Man! I wish I had more time.

Experts Novices

Trend: PMI Standards Emphasize Project Linkages to Strategy

“In order to bridge the gap between

organizational strategy and successful

business value realization, the use of

portfolio, program, and project

management techniques is essential.”

57% of PMOs reported that they

are providing strategic decision

support and the PMO is involved

in strategy discussions in some

way

“More and more, PMOs are getting

involved in strategic-decision support”

Source: Jack Duggal, Projectize Group

N=167, ongoing survey

A question for you to ponder…

why are PMOs

increasingly involved in

strategy discussions?

(I’ll offer a few insights as we go along)

This project is

important to me!!

This project is important to me!!!

My project is important to me!!!

This project is strategic to me!!!

THIS project

is Strategic!

So… what is strategy?

Reality Check

“Our senior management team can neither

develop a competent strategy for our

organization nor execute it.”

“Our organization has no formal process for

developing strategy.”

50% of executives

agreed with this

statement! N=1000

40% agreed

(1 of 2)

Reality Check

“Most executives cannot articulate the

objective, scope and advantages of their

business in a simple statement. If they can’t,

then neither can anyone else.”

– Collis and Rukstad in a 2008 HBR article that was selected for the

McKinsey Award for best article

(2 of 2)

1st….. What strategy isn’t…

“executives who complain about execution

problems have usually

confused strategy with goal setting” *

The result is “bad strategy” that

..is full of fluff statements. “Our fundamental strategy is

one of customer-centric intermediation.”

…fails to recognize or confront challenges.

* Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Strategy Individuals Collaborate

Tools of

Dialogue & Deliberation

The Purpose of

Strategic Thinking

We think strategically to produce insights

– Which we will use in the design OF strategy

Insights come in unexpected ways

Errors Performance = +

Agile Business Innovation

Encourage

and

appreciate

value, speed,

and

flexibility

Design the

business to

meet

competitive

challenge,

leveraging

strategic

resources

Increase

customer

insights and

simultaneously

recognize and

correct

mistakes earlier

Encourage

relevant &

meaningful

insights

See http://wp.me/p37Hgl-cl

H

ori

zon 1

Hori

zon 2

Hori

zon 3

“The world of the future will be an

ever more demanding struggle against the

limitations of our intelligence,

not a comfortable hammock in which we

can lie down to be waited upon by our

robot slaves.” Norbert Wiener, 1964

What are the

benefits of

thinking strategically?

What prevents

people from

thinking strategically?

“I’m too busy”

Unless you take the time to

think strategically,

you will always be in fire-fighting

and crisis-management mode.

Monday 7PM (Eastern Time Zone)

#LeadWithGiants tweetchat

Future of Leadership

Greg Githens VP Strategic Initiatives & Innovation

Get Promoted Get Promoted by Closing Three Skill Gaps

Presentation to PMI Central Indiana Chapter

end