PM ADVISORY:

How to “Greenlight” Projects Based on Corporate Strategy

By Vijay Desai

North Highland

As companies are asked to do more with less these days, project management can sometimes be compared to a downtown intersection at rush hour without a traffic light. Which projects should move forward? Which can wait? How do you jumpstart projects stuck in the intersection because they’ve run out of resources?

When your projects create a bottleneck for corporate growth and success, you’ve got to develop a method to sort through and prioritize each and every initiative—steering projects to align with clearly defined goals and objectives.

All projects in an organization should contribute to the overall corporate strategy. But, how can you connect the dots to ensure that projects are integrated within the business strategy of your company? One way to get the tires rolling is through project portfolio management (PPM). This article will illustrate how PPM can help you define and build a framework for “greenlighting” your projects going forward.

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PPM allows an organization’s executive leadership to identify business goals and then use objective criteria to prioritize and manage projects to achieve maximum corporate value. While it may sound simple on paper, successful PPM actually requires a rigorous, proven and end-to-end process. With many companies juggling hundreds of operational and technical projects at any one time, it’s often difficult to ensure each initiative is clearly defined or in alignment with corporate vision. 

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About the Author Vijay Desai Author Vijay R Desai, a Vice President with North Highland, has extensive experience in providing business strategy, change management and operational improvement expertise to both private and public clients.  He can be contacted at Vijay.desai@northhighland.com.