Strategic Project Management: The Guide to Best Project Treatment

If you've ever worked on a project, then you would know that there are many factors to consider. You have to consider the resources available in your organization, the team members who will work on the project and how they will be trained, and all of their skillsets and abilities. Then there's budgeting: what money is available for the project? When should we expect to complete the project? When will it be launched? These questions can be daunting for aspiring project managers, but you don't have to be! Strategic project management is an approach that allows organizations to align themselves with their customer's needs while meeting deadlines and budgets. In this Blog, we'll talk about why it's crucial for businesses or organizations to follow a strategic approach and how a strategic project management certification can improve your credibility.

SPM: Growth-oriented Solutions for Companies

Strategic project management is a way for managers and business owners to put their companies on the right path to growth. It's different from other project management methodologies because it focuses on the visioned future rather than just getting things done in the present. Strategic project management is also unique because it looks at long-term goals and objectives, which can be achieved by aligning short-term projects with them.

With SPM, there are two main goals:

1) Identifying necessary projects or activities that need to be completed (or started) in order to reach said long-term goals and objectives.

2) Taking steps that will allow these projects or activities to complete while meeting all requirements set by upper management.

Stakeholder Management in SPM

In order to manage your stakeholders, firstly, you need to understand who they are and what their needs are. A stakeholder is any person who has an interest in or could be affected by the outcome of your project. While this sounds like a straightforward concept, stakeholder management can be tricky business as stakeholders often have different goals and requirements for success—and some might even be competing with each other!

Stakeholders typically fall into two categories: internal and external. Internal stakeholders include employees, partners, and managers within your organization. External stakeholders include customers and clients, vendors, regulators, investors, competitors, etc.

Stakeholder management is a vital skill that provides you with the opportunity to identify groups of people or organizations who will potentially be impacted by your project, and identify their interests and concerns. This allows you to build a strategy document around their needs so that you can provide them with accurate information in advance, whereby they can better understand your plans.

Gauging your Audience's Potential Reaction

As discussed, stakeholder management is a strategic tool and a critical part of the stakeholder analysis phase. The stakeholder analysis phase is the first step in developing a clear scope of work on which your project will rely to be successful. Think about who you want your audience for this project to be: potential customers, shareholders or investors, and stakeholders such as employees or other key people who matter. By reviewing your current policies, goals, and the people you serve, you can figure out who will benefit from this project and who might be opposed to it. Once you understand their needs and wants, it becomes easier to create a plan that addresses those issues while not being too dependent on them.

Setting Goals Before Starting on a Solution

The importance of setting goals before you start working on any strategic project cannot be overstated. Without objectives, there's no way of knowing whether or not you've made headway towards success (or even what success looks like). Set specific targets for yourself based on the circumstances surrounding the project assignment—are there deadlines? How much time do I have? Who else will be involved? Are there any benchmarks I need to hit along the way? Once these factors are determined, build them into measurable milestones so that it becomes easier to track progress towards completion.

Conclusion

SPM is an important function for enterprises and it's critical to effective strategic planning. The ability to engage with strategic projects enables your organization to outperform rivals who can't adapt quickly enough and manage projects that don't meet their goals.

If you are looking to manage or lead the development of projects in your organization, then UniAthena's strategic project management course is where your search ends. From start to finish, this free learning Executive Diploma from one of the best e-learning platforms teaches how to build an effective project plan as well as a comprehensive treatment for implementation.