The global business landscape is littered with expensive, well-intended strategies that don’t deliver value, often because leaders failed to identify and invest in the full range of projects required to support those strategies. Co-author of Executing Your Strategy, Mark Morgan demonstrates what organizational alignment for strategic execution really means and how to engage it. He introduces six imperatives that enable people to do the right strategic projects: and to do those projects right. Those imperatives are: Ideation, Nature, Vision, Engagement, Synthesis, Transition. Those sharpies among us realize that the highlighted letters spell INVEST. As organizations struggle with transformation to being truly global companies, integrating products and solutions for customers, or simply delivering on their goals, the need for more integrated action is needed. Mark provides a framework to integrate action in any company in a unique and comprehensive fashion.
Mark Morgan formerly served as the Chief Learning Officer at IPSolutions and was a key architect of the Stanford Advanced Project Management certificate program (SAPM) He now serves as Chief Executive Advisor at Stratex Advisors, Inc.
His new book, co-authored with Ray Levitt and William Malek, on Executing Your Strategy, published by Harvard Business School Press, is a consequence of SAPM. The book is extremely well written and brings the framework of INVEST to life with key concepts and case examples.
Mark will share his framework and experiences with companies who embrace it at the Project Management Institute’s Northern California Symposium 2008 on September 3rd at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA (more information is available at www.pmisv.org/symposium08). He is an engaging speaker who has both a compelling message and appealing delivery. I was fortunate to have attended his “train the trainer” session for SAPM’s Converting Strategy into Action. We were awed by his grasp of the material and wealth of examples. He’s a hard act to follow.
One of Mark’s key messages is “There is simply no way for senior management to accomplish a strategic transformation without getting deeply engaged in project management, the organizational systems that surround it, and the behaviors and terminology required to lead it” (p. 7). In order for these managers and their organizations to be successful, they need to align strategy, culture, and structure with projects, programs, and portfolios. This is such a powerful message that bears repeating, and practice, over and over again until it’s ingrained in the fabric of each organization’s DNA.
It is our fervent hope that Mark will again be the evangelist for this cause at the Symposium 08.
Randy Englund, Englund Project Management Consultancy, www.englundpmc.com
