1. Strategic Project Management
Alex S. Brown, PMP
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (MSIG USA)
Session ADV09

2. What is a Project Nightmare?
Over budget?
Late delivery?
Poor quality?
Even worse: on-time, on-budget, great quality, but delivering something your organization does not need

3. Case Study Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group USA
400-person subsidiary of MSI Japan
Property & Casualty insurer, mostly commercial
Largest book is the US risks of Japanese companies
One-person Strategic Planning Office

4. Session Overview What is strategic planning at MSIG USA?
How does project management complement strategic planning?
How do senior executives participate in projects and strategy at MSIG USA?
What project management trends support strategic planning?

5. What is “Strategic Planning”?
Definition debated for years among academics and business leaders
Typically a one- to five-year plan at MSIG USA
What projects to launch, what to continue
Align with medium- and long-term business plans from USA and Tokyo

6. Key Concepts for MSIG USA
Executive Steering Committee
Was an actual committee in the past
Changed to become the President and CEO
Approve changes, provide executive oversight
The Strategic Plan
By definition, a collection of projects
Projects are essential to strategy at MSIG

7. What is the Strategic Plan?
A collection of 15 to 25 active projects, plus more planned for the future
Monitored by a Strategic Planning Office
Authorized by top management
Cross-departmental impact
Relevant to medium- and long-term plans

8. Strategic Planning Office
Combination of a corporate planning function and a PMO
“Project Portfolio Administration” function
Mentor all project managers
Audit and monitor budgets, schedules, results

9. Partial Organization Chart

10. How Project Management Complements Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning provides ideas
Project Management achieves results
Projects drive strategic changes
Feedback loop for continuous change

11. Strategic Planning – Ideas
Projects are based on ideas and objectives
Strategic planning creates them
SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats)
Competitive Analysis and other studies
Market share goals
Vision statements

12. Project Management Achieves Results
How to execute strategy?
Project management provides a robust way to execute change
Assign project manager, defining accountability and responsibility
Avoid creating strategy that is never realized or even attempted

13. Project Results Drive Change
Each project advances one or more strategic goal
Some projects investigate an issue, creating new strategic goals at the end
Some projects fail, but all are relevant
Failure often uncovers key information

14. Continuous Feedback Loop
Staff Feedback and Ideas
Organizational Plan Updates

15. Events that Join Strategy and Projects
Project start-up
Project closure
Budget and resource authorization
Resource conflicts and priorities
Organizational crisis and strategic change

16. Project Start-Up
Most strategic moment of a project is right when it is authorized
Strategy helps answer, “Why should we do this?” or “What is the goal?”
PM helps you climb the ladder, strategy helps make sure it is on the right wall

17. Project Closure A time to gather new ideas
Teams see unsolved problems and issues
At MSIG these ideas become new project proposals
Ensure that good ideas are not lost
A gift to the strategic planner

18. Budget and Resource Authorization
Projects constantly fight for resources and funding
Tying projects to strategy allows PMs to explain their need in strategic terms
Examining all project resource requests in terms of strategy helps eliminate “pet projects”

19. Project Prioritization
Often project conflicts arise, requiring a decision
Organizational strategy can provide a more relevant way to score and rank projects
Strategic planners are accustomed to scoring systems to set priorities, and can help design an appropriate system

20. Crisis and Strategic Change
Any crisis or critical event causes project uncertainty
Strategic planners face uncertainty as well
These times call for coordination
Practical, tactical ideas from project managers
Industry trends and top-down perspectives from strategists

21. Involving Senior Management
Tie project management to something they must do
Decision making
Training
Constant reinforcement

22. Project Management Tied to Strategy
At MSIG USA, medium- and long-term plans were required by Tokyo
Project management easy to support as a way to implement these plans
Project practices have become an ordinary way of doing business for executives

23. Decision Making
At MSIG USA, projects have become a way for executives to see progress more clearly
Each status report is a chance to provide input
Provided a formal, documented decision-making process
Easier for senior managers to control

24. Project Management Training
Over 10% of the staff, including senior management, was trained in project management
Many managers accepted roles as project managers or sponsors
Middle and senior management reinforce training by using the terms regularly

25. Constant Reinforcement
Projects appear everywhere now
Company intranet
Bimonthly reports to senior management and staff
Continuing education for project managers
Projects are now normal business

26. Trends in Project Management Related to Strategy
Project Management Maturity Models
Standards and Books
PMI Goals and Marketing

27. Project Management Maturity Models
An explosion of models
Hard to measure process maturity without organizational strategy
OPM3: “Transform Strategy into Results”
Executive-level focus of these models encouraging project managers and strategists to meet and talk

28. Portfolio Management Standards and Books
How long can we focus on “selection”?
Strategy encourages “start up” and “creation”
Design new projects to fill voids in the portfolio
Do not just select projects from a fixed list

29. Many Books “Selection-Focused”
Standard for Portfolio Management (PMI)
“priority” & “select” appear 70 times
“new component” appears 10 times
New books account for the creation of the project and organizational strategy
Heerkens, The Business-Savvy Project Manager
Dinsmore & Cooke-Davies, The Right Projects Done Right!

30. PMI Goals and Marketing
PMI is promoting project management at the executive level
“Worldwide, organizations will embrace, value and utilize project management and attribute their success to it.”
“Making project management indispensable for business results.”
Achievable in partnership with strategists

31. Summary
MSIG USA made “project management” inseparable from “strategic planning”
Reinforced from start-up to closure
Strategic planning and project management support and reinforce each other
Industry trends support integrating them

32. Challenge: Link Strategy to Project Management at Your Organization
How could the MSIG USA example help?
What can you change? Whose help do you need?
Are your projects already strategically aligned? If not, why not?
PMI has set a vision for all of us – achieve it in your organization!

33. Contact Information
Alex S. Brown, PMP Mitsui Sumitomo Ins. (MSIG USA)
Phone or
Session ADV09
Website