Many organizations try to use project management to implement a strategy.  But this is not easy.  This article explores why strategy management methods are more effective for implementing strategies than project management methods.

A strategy usually requires people across an organization to change and align the way they do some things, so the whole organization benefits.  In most cases, the strategy is identified in broad terms, with the detail to be planned and implemented by the people involved.

Most people want to know explicitly what they have to do to contribute to the strategy, when and with whom.  Until they know what they have to do, they have difficulty deciding how any changes affect them.

Project management is a powerful method to drive work towards the achievement of a goal.  But it is harder to use for implementing a strategy than for projects that are more local and less dependent on gaining people’s support.

Key issues that project management is not designed to address are:

·         The large number of people affected by a strategy

·         Existing management structures, cultures  and processes that need to be accommodated

·         Evolving scope as workflows are defined

·         The level of detail that directly tells people what they need to do, when and with whom

·         Strategy actions can be overwhelmed by other seemingly more important and urgent actions

·         Management needs to be distributed through the people contributing

In broad terms, the differences between strategy management and project management are:

TASKey has found that strategy management requires breaking the strategy into simple workable action plans that can populate each stakeholder’s To Do list. Then as a stakeholder completes a To Do, plans and progress reporting is updated, and feedback is provided to relevant stakeholders, so they know what is actually happening.

Web and mobile access software called Me2Team handles the complex coordination and feedback required across an organization to implement a strategy effectively.   While project management partially addresses some strategy management issues, it is not designed to handle cross organization participation by people doing ongoing work.  Visit www.taskey.com for more information.