Get a fascinating introduction to the full range of approaches and emerging concepts for aligning project initiatives with strategic objectives.

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As the foundation course in the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum, Converting Strategy Into Action introduces a framework for aligning your organization's project and program initiatives with its strategic objectives by treating strategic execution as an overall system.

You'll learn strategic management concepts, techniques, and tools for building a strong and effective organization. You'll see why it's imperative that your organization's strategy, structure, and culture all align; what the payoffs can be; and how to get there. You'll explore the central imperative of portfolio management, what alignment really means, and the social dynamics of work, as well as the knowing-doing gap, including its lessons, causes, and remedies. And you'll discover how to get immediate results by applying an organizational mastery model that helps organizations embrace a more comprehensive view of strategic execution.

Developed by IPS and the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University, this three-day course teaches strategic management concepts, techniques, and tools for building a strong and effective project-based organization. The concepts presented are reinforced through case study analysis, videos, demonstrations, and structured group exercises.

Benefits to the Organization

As a result of Converting Strategy Into Action, your organization will benefit from:

• Successful projects that effectively execute business strategies
• Faster project completion, with more efficient resource deployment
• A stronger and more productive project-based matrix organization
• An organization capable of consistently high performance

Learning Objectives

After attending Converting Strategy Into Action, you will be able to:

• Pinpoint the aspects of strategic execution that are problems for you in project and program management
• Articulate the differences between two fundamental strategies and how they affect execution
• Map organizational culture and take action to align your work with a changing cultural landscape
• Apply the concepts of organizational structure to project and program structure
• Identify organizational alignment and misalignment, and modify your work to better align with the organization
• Apply an overall model of strategic execution to your work environment
• Formulate changes to project and program work based on three lessons and five causes of the knowing-doing gap

Target Audience

This course is designed to benefit executives, senior managers, and functional managers seeking to leverage their organization’s managerial and technical expertise to the greatest strategic advantage through a project-centric perspective. It is also very beneficial for experienced project managers and project support function (project management office) personnel who are in search of current, powerful approaches for advancing their own expertise and/or the practice of project management throughout their organization.

Prerequisites. Project managers who participate in the course are expected to have significant experience in that role. This may include formal training and education in project management.

Course Topics

Course Introduction and Agenda

• Challenges to executing strategy
• What is “Advanced Project Management”?

Strategic Role of Project Management

• The Integrated Project System
• How PM has evolved
• The new business environment
• The new strategic role of PM

Framework for Converting Strategy into Action

• The Strategy Implementation Operations Model [S-I-O Model]
• The Integrated Project System
• The project ecosystem

Culture and Strategy

• How organizational culture influences strategy
• Four types of organizational culture
• Four value disciplines

Project Portfolio Management

• What is “portfolio management”?
• The portfolio process

Aligning Strategy, Structure, and Culture

• A primer on strategy
• Aligning organization culture and strategy
• How traditional organizations
• Why we use matrix structures
• The fundamental trade-off in organizing projects
• Weak matrix vs. strong matrix: pros and cons
• Lab: applying what you've learned

Managing the Social Dynamics of Project Work

• The vicious work time cycle
• The time use system map
• How culture affects time utilization
• Changing the culture of time

Deep Dive: An Application of Strategy, Structure, and Culture in a Project Environment

• Deep Dive: exploring the culture of IDEO
• Application exercise: applying principles to your organization

The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

• What is the knowing-doing gap?
• The main point of the knowing-doing gap
• Three big lessons
• Five causes of the knowing-doing gap
• Remedies for the knowing-doing gap

Strategic Execution Framework: Mastering the Project Organization

• The world of fractals
• The Strategic Execution Framework (SEF)
• SEF domains

Knowing-Doing Café

• Review of key course concepts