Hi – John Reiling here! Welcome to The Strategic PM. Project Managers are typically associated with implementing…but I’ve always thought that was limiting. There is nothing like seeing the big picture to help you deliver more value, to open new opportunities for the organization and you, and to help others.
MY STORY
My first job after college was as an implementer – a Project Engineer in a manufacturing environment. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot about people, projects, and leadership among other things.
A few years later, when I was introduced to strategy in graduate school, I was so excited to see the world through a different lens! I could see the ‘why’ in what I had seen in manufacturing. I could see many of the bigger questions that needed careful consideration and wanted to learn more, to probe more deeply.
I found ‘strategy’ to be absolutely fascinating, and have found since that strategy combined with implementation skills – especially strong project management – is a powerful combination!
WHY I WANT TO HELP
Every project manager needs to understand the ‘why’ behind a project – but it’s usually just not enough to be told by someone why the project is going forward. Usually there are deeper reasons, deeper insights, deeper objectives that, if the project manager and team could truly understand, would provide a greater basis for delivering and measuring against the bigger goals.
My objective is to help people ‘marry up’ the two – project management and strategy. In my experience there is a gap between the two, where strategists most often do not cross the line to the hands-on implementation side, and project managers rarely get truly engaged with the strategy formulation side.
That’s a problem for both people and organizations. Problems such as this present an opportunity. I’ve always been big on ‘cross-pollination’ – at an individual as well as organizational level. I think there’s an invisible firewall between project management and strategy – and it would be helpful for PM’s to gain strategy skills and experience, and for strategists to gain project management skills and experience.
In short, if more people would walk in the shoes of those on the other side, and I think more effectiveness and opportunity would emerge.
So, the objective is to give folks – particularly Project Managers – a deep and broad range of insights, tools, and skills to master or enhance their strategic thinking. And I intend to do it in a way that parallels and builds on familiar approaches to project management.
GOAL
The goal of ‘The Strategic PM’ is to help project managers undr5stand strategy at a deeper level – to help them be more effective on their projects, to help organizations bridge the gap between strategy and project management, and to help project managers grow in their careers.
If you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and I will be more than happy to help you out.
All the best,
John Reiing
The Strategic PM