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Answer:
This is a question that has a simple answer, but where a small distinction can make the difference between success and failure for many organizations. Many books and articles will tell you that to make the biggest impact, you should always start with your most “strategic projects.” And while I agree to an extent, there is a critical difference between what I mean by “strategic projects” and what you may assume this phrase means. Some companies define strategic projects as those that touch or cross multiple departments, functions or business areas – thereby having broad impact and visibility. I would argue that the strongest determinant of a “strategic project” is not whether it has broad appeal, impact or cross-functionality – but instead should be based on how well that project is aligned with the over-arching “strategic” goals of the business.
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As an example, if one of your company’s stated strategic priorities is “improving customer satisfaction,” then a project that solves a customer problem can be strategic in nature simply because it is helps achieve that goal. Where companies get into trouble is when they assume that the satisfaction project must thereby involve multiple departments or business units to achieve it. What I encourage companies to do instead, is to look at perhaps one area that relates to this topic, where they can make a marked improvement that may have impact throughout the business simply by association.
This difference is critical. For companies just getting started, it is significantly more challenging to work the more complex, cross-functional projects when you have newly trained belts with limited experience, and when the organization is just starting to figure out how to support its program. Complex cross-functional projects are just that – COMPLEX. They can easily get derailed and often take years to complete – meaning they have the ability to slow the momentum of your entire program and potentially deflate everyone involved.
To get your program off to a strong start, it is always best to go for a few very visible quick wins. Look for projects that have “strategic alignment” over projects that are simply “strategic” in nature. Truth be told, strategically aligned projects can be “tactical” in nature. They may also appear to have limited visibility because they stay within the confines of one or two departments. But especially for companies just getting started, limiting project scope to this smaller area will allow for easier data gathering, stronger measurement capabilities, easier project review and a shorter project cycle time. All of these factors will dramatically simplify calculating results. This greater agility will give your program a stronger head start than if you try to “boil the ocean” out of the gates.
Case in Point – a strategic project vs. a project with strategic business alignment
Let’s look, for example, at a hospital that wants to embark on a strategic project of “Increasing Emergency Room Throughput.” This is no doubt a worthy project, and one many hospitals would consider in alignment with their strategic business goals – perhaps as part of a desire to improve patient satisfaction. But when you look at what may be driving ER throughput, you start to see a number of mini or “sub-projects” that quickly pop up. For instance, one driver is that lab results are taking too long to come back, causing back up in the ER. Separately, you can see that the hospital admittance process is delayed because there is a shortage of available clean beds. Behind the bed shortage is the fact that too many patients are not being discharged early enough in the day. Driving discharge time may be the fact that doctors aren’t giving discharge orders until 2:00 p.m. when many patients are ready at 10:00 a.m. Looking deeper yet, you can see that one of the factors driving the discharge delay is delayed test results coming back from the lab.
So when we look at the “Increasing ER Throughput” project, we find a critical point in the process is laboratory turn-around times. In considering all the projects we could work in the hospital – ER turnaround time, patient discharge time, etc.-- the lab really stands out because it is an area that drives a number of other strategic processes in the hospital. This could be considered a tactical project by some; however, by making changes in this one area, the organization can make a very positive impact across the business and still drive its strategic business goal of improving patient satisfaction. (See chart below for a graphical representation of this process).
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