Intro to Strategic Project Management

Are you trying to connect day-to-day project work to the strategy, vision, and goals of your organization? Strategic planners talk about “alignment” and “synergies”, but what do they really mean? How can you make it work in your company?

In this professional development program, you learn how to align strategy to projects, and you get the chance to actually apply these methods to your organization. Stand out in your organization as someone who understands strategy and knows how to turn strategic plans into real results. Get personal feedback and advice from Alex S. Brown, PMP IPMA-C, an expert known around the world.

Practical Results

At the end of the course, you will have

• Concrete proposals for organizational change
• Expert feedback on those changes

You will see and understand

• How your organization’s procedures could be improved
• How your projects relate to your organizational strategy
• What your organization’s strategy is
• What strategy means to your day-to-day work
• Why strategy matters to your job
• Who participates in strategic planning and execution
• When you will have opportunities to influence strategy and align projects to strategy
• How you can communicate more effectively about strategy, both to senior executives and to subordinates

Any project manager hoping to become a senior executive or to run their own company will find this experience invaluable.

Executives and Project Managers are Different: Both Benefit from this Program

Project managers and senior executives often look at projects in different ways. Project managers focus on time, cost, and scope. Senior managers want to understand the benefits and purpose of a project. This course allows project managers to gain an executive-level view, and helps senior managers drive their project managers more effectively.

Use What You Learn Immediately

In this course you can examine key events, policies, and procedures in your own organization. How can you improve your organization? How can you contribute more personally?

You can explore what your organization’s strategy really is. Do your projects relate to that strategy? How? You will learn to explain projects to senior executives quickly and clearly, in terms of the strategic objectives that they care about.

Throughout your work in this course, you have one-on-one contact with me, to help answer questions and research issues. You will get ideas that you can use right away, in your work.

How The Course Works

You get access to articles and recorded speeches about the nature of strategy, projects, and how to align them. You also get an assignment, to help you reflect on the material.

As part of that assignment, you will complete a paper. The paper can be about your own personal experiences running projects and handling strategic issues, or I can help you pick a topic from publicly available sources, or you can write about a fictional company. The writing assignment will help you explore the ideas more fully. We will review your work together, and I will make improvements until we both agree you understand the material well.

I will issue you a certificate of completion for the course, and you can claim PDU or other credit for completing it.

Some students have published their papers in newsletters, blogs, and other publications. Publication can help your professional prestige and earn you many additional PDUs. If you want help getting published, I will suggest editors that might be interested in your article.

How Long Does This Take?

The course is self-paced, and I will help you set appropriate milestones to complete the work. Most students require an hour to an hour and a half to review the material, and another three hours to prepare the paper.

What Do I Need to Take The Course?

You need access to an Internet-connected computer. The material is easy to download and view with virtually any modern web browser.

Students of any writing ability are welcome; you do not need to be a skilled writer to benefit. The point of the written assignment is to show that you understand and can apply the information. You will not be graded on your written English, although I will give you suggestions to improve wording and clarity in your paper. Students with English as a second language are welcome.

Sign up for the course and you can immediately download the learning material and assignment. You can start the course today; I look forward to helping you understand strategy and project management in a whole new way.