Project: Strategy

Strategic planning is the starting point for projects and often the primary reason for a project?s success or failure. It has the potential to enable every organisation to realise its ideals and actualise its values, whether it be a small start-up business, a large international company or even an entire society. Project leaders and project-orientated organisations need to understand strategic planning to recognise their position and environment, and make rational decisions when selecting and defining their projects and programs. But, those same principles can have broader, more profound, and more ambitious applications too.

Project: Strategy is a practical handbook that enables organisations of any size, and employees at all levels within them, to form strategic plans and actively contribute to them throughout a project?s development. Rather than focus on superficial exercises, this book draws from knowledge outside of business and management ? humanities, philosophy, psychology, technology, and engineering ? to create a holistic view and a depth of understanding you would never achieve with SWOT analysis alone. Taking the reader on a pragmatic journey, it teaches self-reflexion, social responsibility and creative thinking with application to their projects and plans, but also to their working relationships and to their organisations.

This book is also an ideal introductory book to progressive programs on strategic planning, with a focus on collaborative work, open strategy, and open strategic planning on a social level. It provides a wealth of learning tools and case studies to demonstrate best practice. This is the ideal guide to project planning for anyone that wants their planning decisions to be as wise as they are savvy.

Acknowledgements, List of Figures, List of Tables, Series Preface, Foreword, Chapter 1 The Nature and Value of Strategic Planning, Chapter 2 The Strategic Planning Process, Chapter 3 Understanding Your Stakeholders and Sources of Organizational Capital, Chapter 4 Understanding your Organisation Structure, Operations and Financials, Chapter 5 Understanding the Business Landscape: The Supply Chain, Competitors and Regulators, Chapter 6 Market Models, Chapter 7 Direction Finding, Chapter 8 Bringing it all Together, Appendix, Index

Helgi Thor Ingason is a professor at Reykjavik University, a consultant and Certified Senior Project Manager. He is the author of several books on management and his work has been published in the Project Management Journal, International Journal of Project Management and Journal of Metals.

Haukur Ingi Jonasson is a professor at Reykjavik University, a consultant and Certified Stanford Project Manager. His background is in theology, philosophy, and psychology, which he applies to engineering and management. He is the author of several books on leadership and management.