Strategic Project Management

Alex S. Brown, PMP

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (MSIG USA)
Session ADV09
 What is a Project Nightmare?
• Over budget?
• Late delivery?
• Poor quality?
• Even worse: on-time, on-budget, great
quality, but delivering something your
organization does not need
 Case Study
• Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group USA
– 400-person subsidiary of MSI Japan
– Property & Casualty insurer, mostly
commercial
– Largest book is the US risks of Japanese
companies
• One-person Strategic Planning Office
 Session Overview
• What is strategic planning at MSIG USA?
• How does project management complement
strategic planning?
• How do senior executives participate in
projects and strategy at MSIG USA?
• What project management trends support
strategic planning?
 What is “Strategic Planning”?
• Definition debated for years among
academics and business leaders
• Typically a one- to five-year plan at MSIG
USA
– What projects to launch, what to continue
– Align with medium- and long-term business
plans from USA and Tokyo
 Key Concepts for MSIG USA
• Executive Steering Committee
– Was an actual committee in the past
– Changed to become the President and CEO
– Approve changes, provide executive oversight
• The Strategic Plan
– By definition, a collection of projects
– Projects are essential to strategy at MSIG
 What is the Strategic Plan?
• A collection of 15 to 25 active projects, plus
more planned for the future
• Monitored by a Strategic Planning Office
• Authorized by top management
• Cross-departmental impact
• Relevant to medium- and long-term plans
 Strategic Planning Office
• Combination of a corporate planning
function and a PMO
• “Project Portfolio Administration” function
• Mentor all project managers
• Audit and monitor budgets, schedules,
results
 Partial Organization Chart
CEO

Office of the CEO President Internal Audit

Underwriting, CIO,
SPO and others
Ops, Finance, others
 How Project Management
Complements Strategic Planning
• Strategic Planning provides ideas

• Project Management achieves results

• Projects drive strategic changes

• Feedback loop for continuous change

 Strategic Planning – Ideas
• Projects are based on ideas and objectives
• Strategic planning creates them
– SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities
Threats)
– Competitive Analysis and other studies
– Market share goals
– Vision statements
 Project Management Achieves
Results
• How to execute strategy?
• Project management provides a robust way
to execute change
• Assign project manager, defining
accountability and responsibility
• Avoid creating strategy that is never
realized or even attempted
 Project Results Drive Change
• Each project advances one or more strategic
goal
• Some projects investigate an issue, creating
new strategic goals at the end
• Some projects fail, but all are relevant
• Failure often uncovers key information
 Continuous Feedback Loop
Staff
Organizational Feedback
Plan Updates
Strategy Ideas and Ideas

Change Projects
 Events that Join Strategy and
Projects
• Project start-up
• Project closure
• Budget and resource authorization
• Resource conflicts and priorities
• Organizational crisis and strategic change
 Project Start-Up
• Most strategic moment of a project is right
when it is authorized
• Strategy helps answer, “Why should we do
this?” or “What is the goal?”
• PM helps you climb the ladder, strategy
helps make sure it is on the right wall
 Project Closure
• A time to gather new ideas
• Teams see unsolved problems and issues
• At MSIG these ideas become new project
proposals
• Ensure that good ideas are not lost
• A gift to the strategic planner
Budget and Resource Authorization

• Projects constantly fight for resources and

funding
• Tying projects to strategy allows PMs to
explain their need in strategic terms
• Examining all project resource requests in
terms of strategy helps eliminate “pet
projects”
 Project Prioritization
• Often project conflicts arise, requiring a
decision
• Organizational strategy can provide a more
relevant way to score and rank projects
• Strategic planners are accustomed to
scoring systems to set priorities, and can
help design an appropriate system
 Crisis and Strategic Change
• Any crisis or critical event causes project
uncertainty
• Strategic planners face uncertainty as well
• These times call for coordination
– Practical, tactical ideas from project managers
– Industry trends and top-down perspectives from
strategists
 Involving Senior Management
• Tie project management to something they
must do
• Decision making
• Training
• Constant reinforcement
 Project Management Tied to
Strategy
• At MSIG USA, medium- and long-term
plans were required by Tokyo
• Project management easy to support as a
way to implement these plans
• Project practices have become an ordinary
way of doing business for executives
 Decision Making
• At MSIG USA, projects have become a way
for executives to see progress more clearly
• Each status report is a chance to provide
input
• Provided a formal, documented decision-
making process
• Easier for senior managers to control
 Project Management Training
• Over 10% of the staff, including senior
management, was trained in project
management
• Many managers accepted roles as project
managers or sponsors
• Middle and senior management reinforce
training by using the terms regularly
 Constant Reinforcement
• Projects appear everywhere now
– Company intranet
– Bimonthly reports to senior management and
staff
• Continuing education for project managers
• Projects are now normal business
 Trends in Project Management
Related to Strategy
• Project Management Maturity Models

• Standards and Books

• PMI Goals and Marketing

 Project Management Maturity
Models
• An explosion of models
• Hard to measure process maturity without
organizational strategy
• OPM3: “Transform Strategy into Results”
• Executive-level focus of these models
encouraging project managers and
strategists to meet and talk
Portfolio Management Standards and
Books
• How long can we focus on “selection”?
• Strategy encourages “start up” and
“creation”
• Design new projects to fill voids in the
portfolio
• Do not just select projects from a fixed list
 Many Books “Selection-Focused”
• Standard for Portfolio Management (PMI)
– “priority” & “select” appear 70 times
– “new component” appears 10 times
• New books account for the creation of the
project and organizational strategy
– Heerkens, The Business-Savvy Project Manager
– Dinsmore & Cooke-Davies, The Right Projects Done
Right!
 PMI Goals and Marketing
• PMI is promoting project management at
the executive level
– “Worldwide, organizations will embrace, value
and utilize project management and attribute
their success to it.”
– “Making project management indispensable for
business results.”
• Achievable in partnership with strategists
 Summary
• MSIG USA made “project management”
inseparable from “strategic planning”
• Reinforced from start-up to closure
• Strategic planning and project management
support and reinforce each other
• Industry trends support integrating them
 Challenge: Link Strategy to Project
Management at Your Organization
• How could the MSIG USA example help?
• What can you change? Whose help do you
need?
• Are your projects already strategically
aligned? If not, why not?
• PMI has set a vision for all of us – achieve
it in your organization!
 Contact Information
• Alex S. Brown, PMP
Mitsui Sumitomo Ins. (MSIG USA)
• Phone 908-229-0202
• Email alexbrown@msigusa.com or
alexsbrown@alexsbrown.com
• Session ADV09
• Website http://www.alexsbrown.com