Moving from strategy to execution is an exciting journey, though many believe it is challenging. Most of the time, organizations spend laudable discipline articulating their vision, mission, and strategy without paying adequate attention to strategy execution. Some organizations strive to deliver initiatives without relating the emerging outcomes to the corporate strategy. The inability of entities to execute their organizational strategy effectively is one of the major factors limiting their success. We cannot overemphasize the relevance of thoroughly articulated strategy execution in delivering corporate value. It is noteworthy that 77% of initiatives with high alignment to strategy are 38% more likely to succeed over the ones with low alignment to strategy (Project Management Institute, 2017). Did you detect that I used the word 'initiatives' instead of 'projects'? A strategic initiative can be a project, program, or portfolio (I will clarify this in my next post, please stay tuned).
In the case of initiatives execution in responding to the dictates of COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the whole world by infecting over 16 million people and killing over 650,000 at the time of this article, how can we rate the global performance? In a practical sense, I doubt if there is any corporate entity that exists without a coherent vision, mission, strategy. A purposive observation of three organizations responsible for disease control in four countries reveals the following insights from the respective links to their web pages.
- USA: Mission, Role, and Pledge of Center for Disease Control (CDC)
- Nigeria: About the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC)
- UAE: Ministry of Health and Protection (MOHAP) Strategy
- The UK. Mission and Values, Public Health England (PHE)
A strategy is a final aspect of perfecting an organization's vision and mission by providing an action plan towards achieving the overall aim. It integrates the corporate vision and provides a roadmap towards realizing the purpose, philosophy, and goals of the organization and the approach determining, communicating, and implementing vision and mission. Strategy formulation, in this instance, might not be the main reason for initiative execution failures in the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, the likelihood of discretely executing the lower end programs and projects following the misaligned time, cost quality objectives deceive the organization into a purported sense of success. We have a lot of imaginations to ponder.
- Imagine the respective corporate agencies in charge of disease control delivering their obligations.
- Imagine situations with the COVID-19 pandemic where the organizations implemented initiatives as stated in their strategic roadmaps by aligning with the organizational strategy.
- Imagine how scenarios where end projects are delivered meet requirements that yielded benefits and values according to corporate strategy.
Unfortunately, people at the lower levels measure their success by delivering misaligned initiatives to organizational success, yet, live in the euphoria of successful project management, thinking that they have achieved the technical objectives. I relate this menace to the archetype of 'fixes that fail.' Fixes that fail complexity is often an element of a more elaborate structure, representing glossing over the symptoms instead of addressing the real underlying problem. Some other people termed it a syndrome of the 'Familiar Spirits,' which would manifest some positive attributes that make their victims feel comfortable and unwilling to cooperating in casting them away.
Turning strategies into reality requires the art of strategic focus towards avoiding the broken links. One of the ways is by institutionalizing strategy performance tracking. You can bridge the gap between strategy and initiatives delivery by Performance reporting from portfolios, programs, and projects towards understanding how well the organization's strategy is working. These underscore the relevance of establishing a well-constituted project management office (PMO) in organizations. Do you think that having functional PMOs in the organizations responsible for disease control can improve the performance of global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic? Your thoughts are highly welcome.
References:
Project Management Institute (2017). PMI’s pulse of the profession: Success rates rise transforming the high cost of low performance. 9th Global Project Management Survey.
Very insightful and great read. Value creates value, I would like to see PMO structures adopted are specific to the organization and offers the most value to the organization.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your expectations concerning the organizational specificity of PMO structures. No one jacket PMO fits all. Organizations should understand their prevailing circumstances and figure out their suitable way of work (WAW). I will be coming up with a topic on governance structures soon. The applicable governance structure in an organization would help in structuring a bespoke PMO.
DeleteQuite a stimulating article. I personally think that the essence of a PMO, irrespective of what type of PMO it is, should be the convergence of strategy formulators and executioners. If a PMO fails to bridge the typical gap between those hierarchies of its host organization, its value will be questioned in no time.
ReplyDeleteThe PMO is a modern innovation intended to fix some of the frictions with the traditional structure of organizations. This implies that there will be instances where a PMO may not be necessary, where a modern organization has in its DNA, the needed agility that ensures continuous ambidexterity to succeed in both its short term and long term goals. Needless to say that the organizations that have pivoted successfully in response to the COVID '19 pandemic have a measure of this agility in their structure or have adopted some innovative measures like the PMO or a form of it. And, in the organizations where the agility is lacking, the result perfectly contrasts those possessing it.
Useful perspectives, Abraham. And nice to have your informed opinion. I like the point you made about using a PMO to bridge the typical gap between the strategy formulators and executioners. I had worked on an initiative packaged by the Strategy Consultants before my team came in for the PMO establishment. It became apparent that my team had to call back the strategy consultants for realignments of their strategy design documents before my team could set up for effective translation of the strategy to the desired reality through execution. Bridging this gap is very critical to success.
DeletePMI's Brightline Initiative should be a great source for expanded knowledge if anyone here seeks to dive deeper into this subject strategy execution.
DeleteGreat! Please find the link for the PMI's Brightline Initiative. It is a valuable resource in this discuss.
Deletehttps://www.brightline.org/about/#our-mission