Achieving competitive advantage through the use of project management under the plan-do-check-act concept

Citation

Srivannaboon, S. (2009), "Achieving competitive advantage through the use of project management under the plan-do-check-act concept", Strategic Direction, Vol. 25 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2009.05625had.009

Achieving competitive advantage through the use of project management under the plan-do-check-act concept

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 25, Issue 8

Srivannaboon S. Journal of General Management (UK), Spring 2009, Vol. 34 No. 3, Start page: 1, No. of pages: 20

Purpose – To show how competitive advantage can be gained by aligning projects to business strategy, and to explain use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle to ensure project/strategy alignment. Design/methodology/approach – Emphasizes the strategic importance of project management, employs Porter’s generic cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategies, modifies the latter to a ’best-cost’ strategy to indicate that, under certain circumstances, a combination of strategies can be successful, and lists, and explicates, the critical elements of a project as strategy, organization, process, tools, metrics and culture, stressing that all elements should align with corporate strategy. Analyses nine projects conducted by seven market leaders, states that the businesses differed in that some were project-based, others were manufacturing and information-technology firms, and that two were government units, bases analysis on interviews with project managers, executives, team members and customers, and explains use of self-typing to identify business strategies and competitive advantage obtained. Findings – Identifies two common themes linking project management and business strategy: the competitive advantages of a business strategy drive the focus and content of project management; and the detected changing business and project conditions help improve the execution of business strategy and/or project management. Incorporates these themes in a framework of business strategy/project management relationships, and describes how to use the PDCA cycle to tailor project management to competitive advantage of the business strategy, linking project strategy to “plan”, organization to “do”, processes and tools to “act”, and metrics to “check”. Originality/value – Extends project management and strategy literatures.Article type: Research paper ISSN: 0306-3070 Reference: 38AF251

Keywords: Competitive advantage, Corporate strategy, Project management, Strategic alignment