MONTHLY COLUMN:

ADVANCES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Addressing Strategic Project Appraisal Issues

By Darren Dalcher

Middlesex University
London, UK

Editor’s note:  The series on Advances in Project Management was launched with a Guest Editorial by Professor Darren Dalcher and first article in the December 2009 edition of PM World Today.  Please read that introductory editorial here, where Professor Dalcher explains and sets the stage for articles in this exciting series by leading authors in the field of project management.  Please read previous articles in the series by visiting the archives, beginning with the December 2009 edition.  Each month’s article is introduced by Professor Darren Dalcher, editor of the Series on Advances in Project Management.  Here is Professor Dalcher’s introduction to this month’s article.

Introduction to January Advances Series Article

When do projects begin?

There are different views embedded in the various books of knowledge about when a project actually begins.  Depending on your point of view, the start date will be somewhere between the initial generation of the idea, the creation of the business case, the assignment of a project manager or even the initial project kick-off meeting.  The view that you hold will in turn influence your processes and your approaches to dealing with risks and uncertainties.

However, regardless of the actual start date, there are choices that need to be made about selecting the right projects, committing to the right portions and aspects of projects and maintaining portfolios and programmes which are balanced. These decisions are taken at an early stage under conditions of uncertainty and can be viewed as strategic decisions about the project. Such strategic decisions have a crucial influence on the success of projects and portfolios, and indeed on how success is perceived.

The project appraisal process and the decision making behaviour that accompanies it clearly influence the resulting project. Once a project decision has been taken the remainder of the work tends to unfold downstream. Given the lack of involvement of project managers in strategic decision making it is perhaps not surprising that we fail to engage in the wider process and ignore the downstream impacts of these early decisions.

The work by Professor Elaine Harris focuses on the crucial area of strategic level risks that organisations may face. The work develops a project typology identifying the seven major types of strategic level projects and their typical characteristics. It provides a rare link between strategic level appraisal and risk management by focusing on the common risks shared by each type. It thus guides practitioners to implement a strategy that is better suited to the context of their project thereby enabling the development of a more flexible and adaptable response in the uncertain real-world of project management.

The accompanying article is developed from the book Strategic Project Risk Appraisal and Management published by Gower in the Advances in Project Management (AiPM) series. The book is unique in offering a full chapter dedicated to each of the seven major types of projects and offering specific strategies for addressing each type.

In drawing our attention to the issues of strategic project appraisal Professor Harris has done the community a great service offering a new approach to understanding and reasoning about issues related to specific types of projects and the strategies required to mitigate their impacts.

Darren Dalcher, PhD
Middlesex University, London
Series Editor