The product life cycle framework is a simple and useful strategic model for product-oriented businesses. There are four product life cycle stages in the Product Life Cycle model. If well understood and carefully mapped to your situation, the product life cycle can inform the selection of project management methodology and other critical approaches for managing … Read more
The value chain provides a holistic way to look at a business’s configuration in terms of where and how it adds value, and at what cost and profitability. Project management fits well into the value chain structure related to the portfolio management process as well as project execution. The value chain framework originated from a … Read more
A common theme in virtually every facet of life is that the pace of change is accelerating. This post is about how the pace of change is affecting strategic planning cycles in a way that closely parallels the transition of project management methodologies from waterfall to agile. This article shows that strategic planning cycles are … Read more
Power and strategy fit like hand in glove. While power – and sometimes strategy – may have negative connotations to some at times, this article is simply about the raw truth. The truth is that organizations, like people, need to do well in order to survive and thrive, and it helps immensely to be in … Read more
Strategy has always existed, but Michael Porter was the first to create a comprehensive framework for thinking about strategy. His initial framework, and those that followed, are rooted in basic economics, but they extend economics from an aggregated view of the world down to the industry and organizational level. Porter’s original strategic framework from the … Read more
PESTLE Analysis – also referenced as PESTEL, PEST, and a number of other variants – is a framework or evaluating macro context factors as part of strategy development. PESTLE is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental. The PESTLE analysis framework is becoming increasingly popular and relevant with the rise of environmental … Read more
The SWOT Analysis – an analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – was developed in the 1960s at Harvard Business School and is one of the earliest strategy frameworks. As simple as it is, it is powerful and can open your eyes to the reality of your situation, both positively and negatively. It can … Read more
This article explores a strategic team building approach. It first takes into consideration the needs of the project specifically, but also the greater organizational needs. It can apply to organizations that primarily do internal projects, or to ones that do projects as a business. To build a strategic team to staff a project, there are … Read more
Understanding business models is a key to successful project management. Why? If you can understand the business model that you are supporting, you will be better able to create a stronger and more relevant project charter and plan. You will be in a much better position to measure your project’s success throughout execution based upon … Read more
Any project is being executed in order to ‘get a job done’. A critical, up front, strategic action for the project manager is to gain clarity on the ‘job to be done’ by the project. This is often also called the ‘product of the project’ – but maybe it goes deeper. This article looks at … Read more