Event Summary from the APM Governance Interest Network event, 11th October ’24

Effective strategy delivery is essential for organizations to thrive and fulfil their purpose. However, it’s widely acknowledged that many organizations struggle with this process. Within the project delivery community, we often find ourselves at the forefront of managing the changes required to bring strategies to life.

One of the key challenges we face is the lack of clear connections between an organization’s purpose, its strategy, and the practical steps needed for delivery. Time and again, issues related to clarity, communication, and delegation emerge as major obstacles to successful strategy execution.

Business units and product teams also have performance and value creation targets, often leading to conflicting priorities. Managing these competing demands—whether it’s about allocating funds, resources, or leadership attention—adds significant complexity to strategy delivery. This complexity brings additional challenges related to prioritization, progress tracking, performance control, agility, and integration.

While some of these challenges fall within the purview of PMO (Project Management Office) and P3 Governance professionals, many others do not, and often there is no clear ownership of these issues. For instance, during a recent APM PMO event, it became evident that no one could identify who in their organization was responsible for ensuring support for the connection between strategy and delivery.

It is clear that unless this connection is strengthened and governance across various domains becomes more systematic, organizations will continue to struggle with effective strategy delivery. This challenge is becoming even more daunting as organizations increasingly incorporate social and environmental goals into their purpose, further complicating governance and strategy execution.

To address these challenges, our organizations must improve in several areas: clarity and communication of strategic objectives, delegation and prioritization of goals, control over progress and performance, and integration across business functions. As we strive to become more purpose-driven, these improvements are essential.

The big question remains: Can PMOs and P3 Governance professionals step up to bridge the gap between strategy and delivery, not just in managing change but across all facets of strategy execution? Why not?

On the 11th of October, the APM Governance Interest Network hosted the first in a series of events aimed at emboldening PMO/P3 Governance Professionals to step into the gap between strategy and delivery. The webinar provided insights into the key issues impacting strategy delivery, especially from a P3 perspective, including the gaps typically between support for strategy delivery and support for portfolios, programmes, and projects.

The event, presented by David Dunning, Greg Krawczyk, and Martin Samphire, highlighted the challenges organizations face in delivering strategies effectively. It inspired P3 professionals to elevate their roles in driving organizational success and provided a language to use with others in the organization to bring strategy to life through effective governance.

The session included positioning statements regarding the process of strategy delivery, the complexity related to making it happen, and noted the success rates organizations are getting in strategy delivery.

An interactive section introduced typical strategy delivery pain areas and invited attendees to share their viewpoints live, producing a word cloud of opinions from an audience of over 360 people. Immediate, live reactions from the presentation panel on the key points were also provided. Questions covered included:

• Clarifying and communicating strategic objectives.
• Cascading strategy into actionable sub-objectives with clear accountability.
• Systematically prioritizing objectives to enable effective allocation of resources, leadership time, and funding.
• Monitoring progress and performance.
• Operating a review cycle to assess progress, performance, and future forecasts.
• Supplying the data needed for quick decision-making, escalations, and referrals.

A quick introduction to the Business Integrated Governance Body of Knowledge (BIG BoK) was given, which provides the connection of all parts of the organization, integrated governance, accountability, information and data, business support & assurance, and leadership.

The session urged PMO and governance professionals to rise to the challenge of improving the connection between strategy and delivery, integrating governance, and thinking bigger to meet both current and emerging demands. It suggested that Governance & PMO Managers apply what they do to projects to the organization, and PMs reach out and connect with strategy delivery to offer these services more broadly. After all – these are areas where PMOs and P3 Governance professionals already excel within the context of project and program management. So, why not extend this expertise to support business-as-usual and value creation objectives, ensuring an integrated approach to strategy delivery?

Who should be interested?

– PMO Leaders who are struggling to support strategic projects and programmes

– PMO Directors to cannot see how strategy is driving change or how projects are enabling strategy

– Governance Professionals who want to see effective decision making, application of policy and process to strategy delivery

– Operations and finance directors who want to see funds / resources deployed in line with strategic priorities

 – Strategic leadership who want to see effective strategy delivery

 – More stakeholder profiles here

Calls to action – Join the BIG LinkedIn Group, Join BIG Forum (APM Area), Sign up as BIG Members – find out all you want about BIG online – sign up for STEP 2