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    Being Strategic: Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis
    Being Strategic: Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis
    Being Strategic: Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis
    Ebook212 pages1 hour

    Being Strategic: Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis

    By Maximilian Groh

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    About this ebook

    What should a company do when it finds itself in crisis? Rejecting the idea that a company’s crisis is bankruptcy resulting from poor financial status, developing from temporary to permanent inability to meet creditor requirements, this study takes an innovative stance in proposing strategic crisis control management decisions in order to stabilize company performance. In order to efficiently implement controlled company crisis development strategies, it is important to design company crisis control structures that represent a matrix of crisis control centers (CCC), also performing as crisis control accounting centers. The mechanism proposed in this study offers complex methods for principal strategic crisis management goal achievement, i.e. crisis prevention and coping in case of crisis onset. Project management and framework are central to the innovative strategy presented here to head off crisis before it starts. Niche and industry formats will change, and so should you. Crisis can be anticipated and nipped in the bud with innovative management strategies.
    ____________________________________________________________
    I really enjoyed reading this book. The flow is good, the content is easy to digest without losing its depth, and it shows the essence of strategic management as applied to project activities. How to prevent and cope with crisis is clearly explained, using a strategic management perspective, which offers more comprehensive solutions. Ultimately, the examples of strategies to use in several typical conditions will help us to have a better understanding of strategic management. This book is great for both academics and practitioners, since the content is “only meat without bones”.
    Rivani, S.IP., MM., DBA
    Head of Division of Research and Development
    Department of Business Administration Sciences
    University of Padjadjaran
    Indonesia

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMaximilian Groh
    Release dateJun 3, 2016
    ISBN9781310218507
    Being Strategic: Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis
    Author

    Maximilian Groh

    Maximilian Groh has a reputation for designing and implementing business improvement programs that achieve their intended results. The key is to analyze, understand and subsequently forecast the corporate climate. Utilizing a strategic approach, Maximilian Groh has been highly successful in identifying main and sub drivers. As such, he is able to reach the target settings. Revamping organizational cultures to better execute new and improved strategies, Maximilian Groh underlines the positive effects of innovation and realignment in his program. Major shifts in the corporate structure and in management practices certainly don't happen overnight. This highly complex process requires a multi-faceted strategy implemented over a sustained period of time. Working hand in hand with business leaders, Maximilian Groh has been able to show them exactly how to undergo much needed internal and procedural adjustments.

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      Book preview

      Being Strategic - Maximilian Groh

      Being Strategic

      Strategy-specific Project Management in Times of Crisis

      Maximilian Groh

      Copyright © 2016 by Maximilian Groh

      All Rights Reserved

      Address inquiries to:

      Maximilian Groh,

      P.O. Box 1313,

      83603 Holzkirchen, Germany

      Distributed by Smashwords

      Cover Design by Oxana Koromyslova

      Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author, with the exception of short passages which may be referenced by reviewers.

      DEDICATION

      To my family and friends,

      whose love, humor, strength, and courage endure and sustain.

      CONTENTS

      FOREWORD

      1. Developing a Strategy-specific Project Management Framework

      2. Strategic Management in Times of Crisis

      3. Strategies

      4. Summary

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      FOREWORD

      This book reviews a methodology aimed at developing the relevant and appropriate strategy-specific project management framework (PMF) to assure project outcomes in times of crisis. Despite a systemic approach being applied, and the relationship between project management and corporate strategy solutions being fragile, application of this methodology would assure you of meeting the changed context, even with strategic corporate projects.

      Many organizations are not able to fully control and manage projects aimed at achieving their chosen strategy. Such control alone is not sufficient. It is important to know when, where, what and how to perform so that the existing project management (PM) fulfills the objectives in a quality manner. This goal is best met by responding promptly to context change and having up-to-date hardware and software (H&S); ensuring the project team is properly set up and motivated efficiently to achieve the strategic goals; and by defining the progress assessment criteria.

      Strategy-specific PMF should combine all the appropriate criteria since it is exactly the PM tool that allows the merging of strategic goals with PM processes, as well as ensuring compliance with the appropriate strategy. In fact, the ongoing, unsatisfactory financial status of a company makes it relevant to apply a strategy-specific PMF. History has shown that every corporate crisis results partially from external factors (macro-economic and political), and partially from internal factors (corporate performance).

      Oftentimes, a mere deviation from the economic performance regularities leads to a crisis, as was seen early in the global financial depression. For instance, Risk Group 1 included the companies that aggressively financed their working capital, often with payroll leverage. As a rule, loss-making enterprises and production lines were supported. This was due primarily to the late response (decision-making) by company management concerning production closure, investment in retrofitting and other. Rather, it would have been more appropriate to use an investment loan to establish a new production line rather than to raise leverage continually for uneconomic production. Thus, the companies were bled white by the ongoing financial starvation.

      According to the leading global crisis management experts, humanity has lived since the sixteenth century in a new economic development/science-technology progress model that succeeded subsistence economy with a minor share of trade. This five-century-old model is finally dying out, although no one can say what will replace it.

      But why right now? The science-technology progress model operated through the technology zone emergence and competition. Throughout the entirety of mankind’s history, only seven attempts have been made to create such technology zones, including fives success stories; i.e., the UK, followed by Germany, the USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union. France and China were failed projects. While the former suffered the Napoleon wars of the late 18th- early nineteenth century, the latter rejected the idea of incorporating itself into the American zone. The very model is tailored so that the zones expand to recover the value of innovations. Accordingly, once the zone cannot expand further, a crisis comes. There have been three such crises in history: late nineteenth century to WW1, the 1970s, and finally the current crisis. The latter is the last one. It is physically impossible to expand onwards, because the entire present world is a uniform technology zone centered in the USA.

      However, one may assume that the above technology zones’ expansion was quantitative. Thus, logically, such zones, having embraced all the globe, would begin to swallow each other. In other words, the quantitative growth is to be replaced by a qualitative one. In this respect, both macro- and micro-economic management efficiency and quality will determine primarily which technology zones absorb others. Therefore, another company priority is improved management efficiency and stable development. The former can be affected by strategic company strategy-specific PMF upgrading.

      Strategy-specific PMF is a symbiosis of operating management, including control over the current status based on internal/external environment monitoring; crisis overriding strategy/strategic management selection and implementation, including projection based on internal/external environment monitoring; as well as crisis prevention strategy selection and implementation. The strategies suggested represent a parallel classification of the known development strategies and complete their anti-crisis nature.

      Should you decide to seek an MBA qualification, this book will help you to gain high marks in strategic and project management. However, far more importantly, it will help you to become a more effective manager.

      Maximilian Groh, MSc Economics

      Munich, Germany

      CHAPTER 1

      Developing a Strategy-specific Project Management Framework

      Corporate Project Management Framework Advantages

      A corporate strategy-specific Project Management Framework (PMF) may help project-focused institutions with projects as the principal income source and any other organizations emphasizing new product development, restructuring, and other business improvement forms. Such a framework allows a company to see its upsides and downsides, as well as to understand its current status and the desired future status. In PMF development, companies use this framework to explore how well respective business processes operate, and are supervised and managed.

      Strategic PM planning is a fairly new area. One may not deny the recent years’ change in worldwide corporate governance quality: strategic management (SM) is no longer something exotic and has become integral to successful local company management. PM is being increasingly used in various industries to achieve strategic company goals. The economic reality demands a prompt, adequate, and low-cost response to the changing business environment.

      PMF may not emerge by itself, especially in a short time period, if not supported by strategic PM planning. Although the principles of the latter have been known for decades, they have been understood relatively recently with regard to PM. Currently, with many organizations having perceived PM benefits, strategic planning is regarded as top priority.

      Several stages can be identified in PMF development. In addition, various tools have been designed to assess company performance. Possibly, the main benefit of company strategy-specific PMF is its toolkit’s adaptability to any organization. Projects are critical for any organization and represent actions resulting in new or improved products, services, processes or organizational structures. PM builds up sales, cuts down costs, improves product/service quality and consumer satisfaction, lifts barriers to business, and offers many other benefits.

      The PM methods are changing and improving intensively. Ever more organizations resolve that PM is key to performance and competitiveness in the current complicated and dynamic business world. The PM centers on training, and on business restructuring programs on the PM process improvement, which are increasingly integrated into the corporate performance improvement plans.

      While some organizations are only starting to use PM in their operations, others have risen to a certain level where PM has become their lifestyle. Some organizations have agreed to PM method mastering with their goals and objectives, with the implementation responsibility resting in such cases not so much with the Project Manager, but rather the company executives.

      Local organizations have not as yet made serious attempts to use PM as the primary approach to corporate strategy implementation. There may be three reasons for such resistance to PM incorporation in the management strategy. Firstly, PM was regarded as a planning and work scheduling tool for mid-level managers, while SM is an executive (Board of Directors) prerogative. Secondly, as long as this tool was referred to the mid-level manager remit, no due attention was given to it by SM, with no potential benefit seen provided such a tool is used appropriately. Thirdly, top managers opposed PM inclusion into SM, because, upon inclusion as the principal in strategy implementation, it would require decentralization and decision-making authority devolution to project managers, thereby taking away executive power, weight, and authority, or at least derogate those. See Table 1 for the ideas about positive PM-promised changes that dispel some assumptions and offer modern viewpoints on such changes.

      Current requirements in corporate governance techniques/procedures go far beyond traditional ideas. Modern managers are willing to use more progressive tools, e.g., balanced SM/PM indicators, while not confining themselves solely to the traditional models.

      In making strategic/project decisions, leaders and owners increasingly need more than financial data. The fast developing marketplaces and tough competition determine the greater importance of the intangible asset appraisal data of the PM. Apart from project profit and increased capitalization, high relevance is being given to market share increase and competitive edge for the organization itself. Customer loyalty/retainer capacity, prospective PMF operation procedures, streamlined strategy-specific business processes, and powerful highly-qualified project teams are of utmost importance and determine corporate value in the future. PMF development helps evaluate the above factors and offers new opportunities for corporate SM as a whole. The main assumption for PM use for strategy implementation may be as follows: the PM/SM performance assessment approach based solely on financial performance does not secure future growth of company value itself.

      The strategic PM model base may comprise four principal components/ projections, namely: finance, marketing, operating management, and training and development. On combining those with the PM model elements, including business area, timing, value, quality indicators, command factor, and risks, the PMF will build on a comprehensive approach to corporate asset value appraisal as the PM basis.

      A PMF should efficiently advise varied-level managers of the new strategic plans of, and initiatives by, company management. The results of strategy-specific PMF usage should be used by the managers for PM performance improvement, including higher product quality, shorter implementation period, cost reduction and other. First and foremost, the strategy-specific PMF also should efficiently monitor executive strategic initiative implementation while identifying the key processes of impact

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