Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

Alternatives to the Strategic Alignment Model

The Strategic Alignment Model is a robust structure for the organization to use to allocate its resources (time, money, and professional staff) to projects and programs. But what do you do if your organization does not have a well developed strategic planning process to base your resource allocation decisions on? There are alternatives and that is what I am sharing in this section. The more popular approaches are briefly described in the following sections.

Growth Versus Survival Model

This way of categorizing projects is the simplest of all models that I am aware of. Projects are either focused on growth or survival. Growth projects are those that propose to make something better in some way. Obviously, these are discretionary projects. Survival projects are the “must-do” projects. These projects must be done or the enterprise will suffer irreparable damage. In short, survival projects are projects that must be done, and all other projects are growth projects.

If the budget is in a contracting phase, you will probably allocate most of your resources to the survival category. Conversely, if you are in an expansion phase, you will allocate most of your resources to the growth category.

Within each of the growth and survival categories the proposed projects should be prioritized as the basis for funding or staffing them.

Project Investment Model

The Project Investment Categories Model is a close kin of the financial investment portfolio. ...