Strategic Alignment - The Secret to Project Success

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Many teams are looking to work on game-changing projects and push their companies forward. But even if you develop something that’s innovative, if a project is out of alignment with your organization’s goals, the likely result won’t be success but frustration. Today’s show is all about avoiding that outcome.

NARRATOR

The world is changing fast. And every day, project professionals are turning ideas into reality—delivering value to their organizations and society as a whole. On Projectified^®, we’ll help you stay on top of the trends and see what’s ahead for The Project Economy—and your career.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

This is Projectified^®. I’m Steve Hendershot.

The ultimate goal of projects, programs and portfolios is to deliver value and drive an organization’s strategic objectives. But sometimes it can be challenging to get everyone on the same page as to what success looks like for a particular initiative. 

Complex projects have lots of stakeholders with long wish lists and different priorities, and those voices can pull teams in all sorts of different directions. Plus, companies’ priorities can shift in today’s disruptive business landscape, with seemingly constant changes in consumer preferences and needs. If project professionals don’t adapt, their work is destined to underwhelm—and possibly even be seen as a failure. 

Good thing, then, that project leaders can use their skills and expertise to ensure that their work stays in alignment not only with what’s on paper in terms of the project scope but also with their organization’s top-level vision and objectives. We cover this in the first of our conversations today, where Projectified^®’s Hannah LaBelle spoke with Ayobamiji Iyiola, a senior IT project manager at First Bank of Nigeria in Lagos.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

HANNAH LABELLE

It’s great to speak with you, Ayobamiji. Let’s start our discussion with why it’s important to align project goals with an organization’s priorities, and what challenges can come up when those two are not in alignment. 

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA

Thank you, Hannah. Like you already stated, it’s very important a project aligns with the organization’s priorities. Projects are initiated as vehicles towards meeting [an] organization’s objectives. At the end of the day, if the project is delivered and they do not meet these objectives, they miss the reason why they were initiated in the first instance. I like to refer to projects as vehicles that drive the organization to a particular destination. So the projects must get to the right destination, not just any destination, else the reasons for initiating them are missed.

HANNAH LABELLE 

How do you know what your organization’s strategic objectives are? What’s the process for ensuring that you’re up to date on those overall priorities? And for you personally, has that process of figuring those out evolved over time?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA

It’s the job of a project manager to ensure that he or she identifies these goals, understands them to start with and drives the projects in ensuring that they meet these goals. I personally, over the course of my career, have some processes that I’ve deployed over time, and they’ve worked immensely.

One of such is establishing regular touchpoints with the business. A lot of IT projects follow the agile approach, although that doesn’t mean only agile approaches are applicable to IT projects. And one of the goals of agile delivery is to ensure that value is delivered to the business, in this case, the organization. And also to ensure that we maximize change for the benefit of the project. So it’s very key to establish regular touchpoints with the business such that in case these priorities change or they are tweaked, we are able to pick it up as early as possible and integrate it into the projects to ensure that the project is eventually driven towards achieving these goals. The scrum framework already [has] established processes for this, such as backlog refinements, the daily standup, requirement gathering. I listen to the pulse of the business to ensure that I identify these goals.

Another process is organizational awareness, the ability to identify the decision dynamics within the organization. Who are the key decision-makers within the organization and understanding why the organization seeks to achieve some goals. Also involved in organization awareness is understanding changes within the organization, how the organization is faring within the industry. Basically, understanding the “why” behind projects rather than just implementing the projects.

And lastly, understanding the particular approach to be used for each project. One of the ways that I ensure that this project is delivered according to the goals of that particular project is also the method of delivery. Being able to identify which approach best aligns towards achieving strategic goals also ensures projects are delivered in line with the organization’s objectives.

HANNAH LABELLE

Let’s walk through an example. You recently completed a project that expands the bank’s services in a nearby country through a USSD solution, or an unstructured supplementary service data solution. This allows customers to perform banking transactions without using the internet or data. So, what were the metrics or success measures that you assigned to the project, and how did you create them?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA 

We wanted to integrate the organization’s USSD solution with a telco within that region for better exposure, better acquisition of customers and increasing revenue. So one of the first things I did was understanding the business case for this project. Why was this project needed? Beyond the overview provided by the product owner, I was able to identify the key stakeholders on the project using Power grid and RACI matrix. Understanding who are the key decision-makers on this project, to establish touch points with them to ensure that I understand the intricacies of why this solution was needed. And having identified that, then I establish some success metrics. 

The goal of it was to reach more customers and to ensure that the solution has a seamless user experience, such that it can be adopted faster. Also, we knew that time to market was essential because this was a competitive industry. 

HANNAH LABELLE

So what steps did you take during project execution to meet these success metrics? 

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA 

It was very key that I established measures toward ensuring that these success metrics were met. So, for example, in terms of offering great user experience, considering the development team were not residents in this country, we knew that we needed to establish touch points, engagement with the business, to ensure that the user experience that we’re building was great. Since they understood the market, we engaged them as we executed the project so that at the end of the day, the USSD solution offered great customer experience, such that it was easier for the customers to adopt it.

The second measure I mentioned was time to market. Even though there were a lot of challenges which affected the time to market, I also ensured that I adopted empathy. I communicated as much as possible that the interests of the business were top in the mind[s] of the development team as well as myself. 

Also, team motivation. To ensure that the team is well motivated towards achieving this goal. That’s the place of painting the product vision as much as possible. I needed to communicate as much as possible to the team the reason, the why of this initiative, the impact of that initiative. Even though there were challenges, they were well motivated towards ensuring that the product was successfully delivered.

HANNAH LABELLE

You had mentioned you are talking with the product owner, you’re talking with these stakeholders, you all are kind of working together to build these success measures that are going to align with the organization’s goals. Does having this conversation and getting everybody on the same page make communication as you execute the project a little bit easier and clearer because everybody is already seeing that bigger picture of how this is going to fit into the overall strategy for the organization?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA 

Yes, absolutely. Communication plays a key role in successful product delivery. But not just communication, but [also] managing communication effectively. We had a team across different geographical locations, so it was key to manage communication within this team. Also considering cultural differences, to ensure that we communicated clearly and adopted the best communication channels. We came on calls to ensure that everyone was well aligned. So at every stage, the business [was] aware of the challenges and also how they were being managed. 

HANNAH LABELLE

Now let’s talk about the benefits realization piece. How did you minimize risks to future benefits and maximize the opportunity to gain additional ones, really working to make sure that these would last?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA

Every project is aimed at achieving a particular benefit. And in this particular project, adoption was key, but also retention. Getting the customer to use the solution was adoption. But retaining them has a lot to do with the quality of delivery, ensuring that the user experience was great. Ensuring that quality delivery was a way of not just driving adoption, but also retention of this solution. Paying attention to feedback from the market also helped in maximizing these benefits. As we gained more customers, we were able to generate more revenue through that solution.

HANNAH LABELLE

Have you ever been working on a project and during execution, there was a shift in overall strategy or priorities? What is the plan for adjusting when an organizational priority shifts?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA

Change is necessary sometimes. The most important thing is to evaluate the change to ensure that it’s for the benefit of the organization and the project. One that comes to mind was on a solution that we were deploying, and midway through the implementation, we realized that there was a decision made by the business that meant one of the partners that we’ve engaged need[ed] to be changed. That brought about a change in the implementation strategy. As humans, we tend not to be open to change but the most important thing is to manage change effectively and adopt it for the betterment of the organization. 

We realized that if we proceeded with that approach for that project, we were open to penetrate two classes of end users in the same market, and we would only be able to penetrate just one. That wouldn’t be good for the business objectives. So we needed to change that particular implementation strategy. After the change had been decided, we examined the new direction of that project to ensure that it achieves that objective. 

I needed to ensure that the team was still motivated, considering work [had] gone into the implementation up until that stage. So this is where empathy as a leader came in to ensure that this was well communicated and the benefit of this particular change was well outlined as well. 

HANNAH LABELLE

Last question—what is your top piece of advice for other project professionals when it comes to aligning projects to organizational strategy and the importance of business acumen?

AYOBAMIJI IYIOLA

Success criteria are not necessarily cast in stone. Success criteria are unique to each project, and they should be well managed such that the project would deliver the needed expectations. So, it may not necessarily be the traditional success criteria because it’s possible that a project achieve[s] time, cost, quality standards, and it’s still not a success. 

For example, a project that the time, the cost [were] achieved, but at the end of the day, the market dynamics have changed, may not necessarily be a success. So, it’s important that project professionals are more open-minded, and they should ensure that they identify the reason, the why behind each project, and they establish success measures towards achieving these goals. If this is done, projects will better achieve the business expectation and the organization’s strategic goals. 

MUSICAL TRANSITION

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Organizations’ priorities are usually stated in written internal and external communications—annual reports, strategic plans and so on. But sometimes those documents don’t tell you exactly what’s closest to the hearts of those in leadership. It’s beneficial to go straight to the source, according to Omar Picone Chiodo, a senior portfolio management office director at the consumer health company Kenvue, a subsidiary of healthcare products giant Johnson & Johnson, based in Zug, Switzerland. Let’s go to his conversation with Hannah now.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

HANNAH LABELLE 

Omar, today’s discussion is all about aligning portfolios and projects to organizations’ goals. So let’s start high level. How do you learn what your organization’s goals are? Is this something your company communicates effectively to employees, or did you have to take the initiative to learn?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO 

It’s part of the onboarding that usually companies provide. In my experience, I [have] work[ed] for startups, I [have] work[ed] for established companies, but let me tell you a pattern. In a startup, everything is by your initiative, so you need to be really proactive in looking for the information you need. In [a] more consolidated company, that has become sort of [part of the] onboarding session, where the company tells you [the] really high-level strategic objectives, but these are more in terms of culture, more in terms of where they want to go. But if you want really to know what are more in detail the goals, you need to investigate yourself through the document library they have. And the most effective way is to talk to leadership—to meet them even for a coffee break, for lunch, and understanding where their mind, their idea is going into the future. 

HANNAH LABELLE 

So as you begin organizing a portfolio, how do you ensure it aligns with your organization’s strategy? Are there processes or mechanisms in place that help you to do so?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO 

The first step at [the] portfolio level in particular is to get familiar with what are the strategic objectives of the company, in which environment, in which function, let me say, in which division they belong to, and what are the priority? How [do] they prioritize the strategic objective? After you get familiar with this information, you need to understand what [is] the project, and particularly the product that this project [is] delivering? Building what is called “strategic map alignment,” where you relate products to each strategic objective. 

On top of that, [one] other useful thing to do is define the benefits that these products are going to realize. And the second step is to relate benefits for each product to which strategic objective of the company it’s going to give more help [to] and weight them. So you can also prioritize through a simple weighting system what benefits are aligned with the strategic objective of the company, so that when any strategic objective is going to change or any needs from the leadership that come, you easily, with this in front of you, can manage projects and as well benefit realization.

HANNAH LABELLE 

As you’re looking across the portfolio and you’re creating these success measures, how are you engaging with stakeholders to really work with them in that creation and development process and make sure everybody stays aligned and meets these objectives? And then in that area, what role does the definition of success play in that step?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO 

Yeah, that is a really, really complex part. The challenge in stakeholder engagement, stakeholder stewardship if we want to call it—this relationship between you and the stakeholder—is that you need their support. 

First of all, you need to recognize all the stakeholders [that are] related to each project or product you are managing to your portfolio. You need also to have a bit of sensitivity on who they are, being really aware of the cultural differences, because those are really important. Today we are working in [a] global environment. You need to engage with all of them, recognize them, recognize the cultural difference, classify them, and understand what are their interests in the project, in the product, to ensure that you communicate properly to them.

But what you need to agree [on]—and this is the key—you need to agree [on] some benefits to be realized, such as KPI [key performance indicators]. But you need also to create two points: one is the target, the other is the value of this KPI. With this product, we are producing a business change, what we want to achieve. What is the target, and then measure the actual. So you have a buffer where you can play, and then you have something tangible to talk with them and say, “Look, the benefits we define in the beginning is at this level, is between the baseline. Maybe it has not achieved the target yet, but we are going this direction.”

HANNAH LABELLE 

What are the top challenges or roadblocks that portfolio leaders face when they’re creating success measures or meeting them? And how do you overcome these challenges? You’ve already talked about how sometimes even just setting up these processes to create them can be challenging. You’re obviously engaging with a lot of stakeholders. So, from your experience, what are these top challenges or roadblocks?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO 

Now we have to talk [about] let me call [it] four levels: leadership level, portfolio level, program level and project level. So the last three belong to the PMO, and this is our more internal measure. What is exposed to [the] leadership team is more at [the] portfolio level. My role is going to meet [the] leadership team biweekly, weekly or monthly. Executives are usually super busy. They don’t want to know the details. They want to know the key measures in a subjective way, in a slide or two where you present the status. And if the status is not what they expect—everything great, everything on time, on schedule, on budget—they ask you, “What’s going on there?” Only in that case, you need to go into detail. Say, “There is some risk. There is some issue.” And then you need also to be able to explain to them who is taking this action to get the project, the program, the portfolio—the activity, in summary—back on track. You need to be able to engage them in a concise way to attract their attention on the key points to get their support.

As a PMO as well, you need to manage the project and the program managers to make them understand what they need to perform in terms of concrete work to deliver the product, but as well, what reporting and which way they need to communicate to you the concise and fundamental information to get you to know what’s going on at the project level, but as well what you need to communicate to [the] leadership team. There is not really [a] company in my experience that [has] set up a precise process that gives you clear guidelines in how to do that. Despite the fact that project, program, portfolio management is quite well defined as a standard, every company has their own peculiarity. You need to learn what fits the company in order to be able to tailor that according to the company culture [and the] company expectation where you work.

HANNAH LABELLE 

So it’s not even creating these measures or meeting them—it’s more so how are you relaying the information that could be challenging, and making sure you have the right information so that everybody has a clear picture of the process of getting to what you have decided to be the success metrics or KPIs?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO

Exactly. The main two categories of measurement you can take is qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative measures are the one that I personally love. I personally think [they] are the more reliable because it’s [a] number between zero and 10, where 10 is the maximum, zero is the worst, we know that [at] five, we are middle way. Eight, okay, we are quite close to the target. It’s quite understandable from everybody. Percentage, color code, these are all measures that concisely explain what’s going on.

But then there is also qualitative measure, and this qualitative measure gives the additional information that can help leadership to understand. So my suggestion, in this case, is to concentrate more on quantitative KPI, like financial, like competition, percentage, number, color code, and then add some qualitative information. The definition of KPI that you want to show to the leadership team, my suggestion is, keep that concise. Charts and numbers and figures, there is nothing more that can explain better the status of what you are doing.

HANNAH LABELLE

Let’s say an enterprise’s strategic objectives have changed. How do you work to get a portfolio on track to meet new goals? When are you considering pausing or abandoning projects, and what factors do you consider in that assessment?

OMAR PICONE CHIODO

Today, we live in a market, it’s quite dynamic. What [a] consumer wants today is not maybe what [a] consumer will want tomorrow. The market as well brings instability, a change of direction of the company. So that has happened. That is really easy with a strategic map in your hands, where project benefits are mapped to [the] strategic objective. 

When a strategic objective is changed or is deprioritized, you check what the projects are related to, and then in this case, you have a couple of choices that must be agreed [to], obviously, with [the] leadership team and with the stakeholder of this project because maybe not everybody unanimously agrees to take some action. But you can do something like you put on hold the project, you deprioritize the project, allocating and redirecting resources to more at-the-moment, higher-level priority projects. But you can as well abandon a project.

There are some activities like premature abandoning of the project. What I set up in my company at the moment is a stage gate review, where in different phases [the] project team and leadership meet, and they assess the project: the performance of the project, where we are going, what are the close future of this project? And we assess, okay, from [a] financial point of view, what we are going to spend more to finish this project? And if this is higher than the benefits that in the next five years it’s going to bring, the leadership can decide to abandon the project or can decide, okay, put that on hold because we have a higher priority. 

In my opinion, you always have to propose a way forward, or at least a couple of choices, because remember that they don’t know the details. The details they know [are] what you show to them, what you explain to them. Sometimes they are not in the condition to take a clear-cut decision, but they need to be driven by you to take their correct decision because as a PMO, you have more visibility in what’s going on in the portfolio. More than that, so you can propose different solutions, [a] different way forward.

HANNAH LABELLE 

Well, Omar, thank you so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it.

OMAR PICONE CHIODO

Thank you, Hannah.

NARRATOR

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