Aligning Projects with Organizational Strategy
The most valuable projects support short-term business goals and contribute to achieving strategic objectives. Aligning projects with an organization’s strategy requires specific, often overlooked approaches. Here are some practical techniques:
- Review the organizational strategy before producing the project charter. Review the entire strategic plan, not just the executive summary. Look for specific objectives, the metrics used to measure them, and the vocabulary used to describe success. Then draft the project charter, mirroring the language used in the strategy to directly connect the project to the organization’s strategy.
- Review (or build) an Outcomes Map. Instead of a flowchart to outline process steps to achieve a specific result, Outcome Maps capture the initiatives or projects required to deliver broad strategic initiatives. Review the outcomes map with the sponsor and key stakeholders to make sure they agree that the project will fulfill one or more of the map’s steps. If senior management can’t clearly see how the project supports the pathways outlined in the Outcomes Map, revise the project charter to align with management’s intentions.
- Include strategy reviews in status meetings. At least every quarter, revisit the alignment between the project and organizational strategy. This is important, as strategies can shift. What made sense in January might be off-target by July. Use strategy reviews to confirm the project still supports the current long-term objectives and to determine whether the project approach needs adjustment.
- Design project governance with the strategy in mind. Encourage the sponsor or steering committee to go beyond approving budgets and timelines. Propose that they participate to ensure major project decisions support the organizational strategy. To reinforce this, project managers can require teams to explain the strategic rationale for any significant change or new direction. Then, the change review board can evaluate and confirm that rationale before approving any change.
Take your current project or a recent one and build an outcome map to see how it aligns with the organization’s strategy. If you find a weak link, apply these techniques to beef up the project’s alignment.
For more information on Outcomes Mapping, go to https://www.outcomemapping.org/
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