Strategic Project Management

More than 30 Years of Working with Teams

Strategic Project Management

External Consultant

Interim Manager

Interim Project
Manager

Interim PMO

'Über den Tellerrand schauen'

When for more then 30 years i started my story with a computer shop in the middle of a Black Forest town, I had really no idea where it’s way would pave me.

In that 30ish years this story brought me and the teams I worked with from Germany to Europe, up to Thailand, to China and back again. With a BA in Philosophy I always will be a Strategic Project Manager – or better – a Leader of a Team that allows us also unusual idea. Whose questions were raised of the whole team, which might be longer lasting question, questions where IT related issues step aside for strategic – or at the end philosophical – ideas, background topic and general questions.

What is strategic project management? Strategic Project Leadership – or SPL – has been growing within the last 25 years to a more advanced and more important project management within the combined project management community.

While a grown number of projects, which just were looking at the ‘get it done proposal‘ failed regarding – one of them or all aspects – time, budget or resources, the projects which were also looking at other aspects as their specific targets where later thriving with success.

To make this project management work, we need a formal goal that can guide project planning and execution towards a strategy: That’s the:

Strategic Project Leadership

As you can see on the left image there is a ‘missing link’ called ‘Project Strategy’ recurrently running through all the lets say ‘theoretical life cycles’ of a strategic project management or better leadership.

Putting in the ‘Project Strategy‘ between ‘Business Strategy‘ and ‘Project Plan‘ and proofing that your strategy runs recurrently through all your stages of the project life cycle. Making sure that it is recurrently in every step of that cycle – that fits in smoothly of your project life cycle.

To put it simple: The difference between the ‘classic project management‘ and the ‘strategic project management‘ is not to ‘just stick to the project plan’ but develop in addition strategic idea(s) which makes the business strategy thrive and makes the project way better on its winning in the market place.

Without going into more detail here there is one more important part which should be mentioned: The project management methodology Prince2 Agile.

What does ‘Über den Tellerrand schauen’ – it’s a German saying, meaning ‘looking out of the box’ – tell us? Think some steps more out of your regular project box then obviously necessary. And that could bring you into more trouble than your originally project setting already have! If you have the feeling that there are issues you should mention then talk to your team, to your project leading team and to the guys your are leading this project for. If you don’t take it seriously, if you do it repeatedly and keep it under wraps, you will lose that project in the end. So, keep your head up high, talk about all issues openly and try to solve it together with your team.

Check out the project stories I put up here: Project Stories

Download my Curriculum Vitae: