Michael Porter: Aligning Strategy & Project Management

Aligning Strategy and Project Management
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A strategy may be defined as a plan of activities designed to realize a particular goal. A strategy is about acquisition or at least endeavoring to acquire a position of benefit over competitors or adversaries. A project is actually a task with explicit start and conclusion parameters intended to produce a definite outcome. Project management refers to the discipline of utilizing established procedures, principles, and guidelines to manage a task from beginning through completion (Rouse, 2016). In some project management methodologies, projects are perceived as independent units by a project manager. In overall, while this could allow an abundant deal of suppleness of visualization for the task manager to drive a project anywhere she or he desires it to reach. It also threats diverging very extreme from the general aims and goals of the business as a whole. Alternatively, many managers are currently seeing the paybacks of aligning tasks with administrative strategy. By bringing into line projects and better strategic goals, managers help guarantee that assets are well utilized and openly affect company prosperity (Milosevic, 2006). Therefore, in this essay, I will discuss my key takeaways from the video by Michael Porter concerning aligning strategy and project management.
Michael Porter is an aerospace engineer who took time to explain what aligning strategy and project management entail. From his lecture, I am able to gain key concepts concerning the idea.

He clearly explains the reason for aligning project management with a strategy where he emphasizes that every project is embedded into a strategy. If not, it will be impossible to find the accurate aims of a project and it will not be possible to link what is happening in the organization with the project. The core concepts of the strategy include thinking about the organization as a whole rather than the function or the project, understanding how the entire business fit together and how the entire outside environment could affect the business. According to Michael Porter, people may attempt to be the best manufacturers, or have the best products. But there is no best, it really depends on the client segment that one is serving. A business can be best for one client segment and the poorest for the other. Rather than attempting to be the finest at all, Strategy is actually about “how to be unique, to deliver unique value to your customer segment” (Porter, 2015). From the video, as a business professional, I have also realized that one of the main mistakes is baffling between strategy and goal, a strategy is concerned with how to realize the goal and in what way organization strives to place itself. Again, a strategy is not the mission or vision statements, it is a set of adoptions of how to contest.
There are two means to render the organization or business profitable though it is difficult to implement both at the same time. These methods include the ability to make high price and lower cost. Making high price includes the creation of a distinguished product with extreme unique features, high quality, and unique user experience among others. The ability to establish lower cost involves the creation of good quality products with basic features. A successful strategy has unique worth proposition to the client through answering questions like what specific clients’ needs the business should meet, what are the organization’s customer segments, and how will the company price its service or products (Porter, 2015). Also, the effective strategy involves competing to make enhanced value proposition through making enhanced operation management. The lecture is informative and interesting on the matter of aligning strategy and project management and, therefore, I agree with Michael Porter’s concepts and illustration.
References
Milosevic, D. (2006, May 7). Aligning project management with business strategy. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/aligning-project-management-business-strategy-2557
Porter, M. (2015, February 4). Michael Porter: Aligning Strategy & Project Management. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from https://youtu.be/CKcSzH1SvCk?list=PLrgoJWiQ8jv3i8Ethny8MJ0f5DnXUIpvZ
Rouse, M. (2016). What is project management? – Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/project-management