Strategy Execution and Innovation Can Be Drastically Improved

My series on “Choosing the Right PMO” concludes with this post about the most important twin goals of an organization and therefore a PMO:

1. Execute strategies- the record is very poor here. Most companies do a very bad job of executing strategies. Strategies lead to tactics which lead to projects. If your project management is out of control you will not execute strategies consistently.

2. Innovation- also a poor record in this area because companies don’t have business processes designed to look for, research, and then create projects to support innovative ways of doing business. Many times it’s the boundaries that are put around the task that limit effective innovation- i.e., look outside your industry and outside your country for innovative business practices in the best companies. Then assess which ones will enhance and provide value to your business. The PMO is a perfect vehicle for this because it can control both the research process, the strategy process, and the project portfolio management process.

Companies need to go through a reality check regarding whether or not they are managing business processes to support strategy execution and innovation. A formal approach which usually requires the formation of a new organization is required. It really doesn’t matter what you call it. I call it a PMO, but it could be called a Center of Excellence or Center of Innovation.

Bottom line- the “Choosing the Right PMO Vision” series gives you the structure to embark on creating such an organization that will have a tremendous impact on your company: 25-50% improvements in project completion, throughput, and cost, plus potentially going from 10% to 90% of strategies successfully executed. These kinds of impacts go beyond numbers and comparisons because you will have completely changed how your company operates.