ABSTRACT
Strategic project management is gradually becoming a popular and growing trend within the discipline of project management. The general idea is that project management teams must learn how to deal with the business aspects of their projects, as well as better support their company’s business strategy and sustainability, rather than just focusing on meeting traditional time, budget and performance goals. Although not new and gaining popularity, it seems that strategic project management has not yet become an explicit and widely used approach in the practice of project implementation. One of the concepts that was mentioned as an important element is project strategy; however, no universal framework or even a clear definition of what project strategy is, has so far emerged. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework for developing, studying, planning and implementing the concept of project strategy. The chapter will first discuss the general evolution of the concept of strategy and the need for strategy at the project level. We will then suggest a response to the questions “What is project strategy? What are its components?” Empirical evidence from a real-life project will demonstrate how specific strategy components can be applied to project planning and implementation. Ultimately, the goal is to provide a framework and guidelines for organizations and managers on how to plan their projects with a strategic focus in mind and how to manage them in a more strategic way for better business results.
