TAA ENTS ST & CONTROL te THE ULTIMATE HANDS-ON GUIDE TO BRINGING PROJECTS IN ON TIME AND ON BUDGET + JAMES P. LEWIS, Ph.D.CHAPTER Developing Project Strategy Un this chopter, we wl dsus developing seg for «pro ct This inves Seps 3 fo of my method, nd these see re ‘pest in pure 7 for your cnveience “As T have writen previously thre a song tendency fr reople ti cto in yl downto Sep) They ant {opt etn hand get foo dae” Ab es tel propery define the pele being salted and each» proper ison and ison rhe ob Contequnty he pe ae. ‘Another mists nant tofump fom Sep downto Step 6 Pople ho dhs unrtnd that hey mst eal ith Step 2 fatto al conser pret stat Tey simpy wn coe Siac working larounl a schedule tat developed wh Some indo soar‘Sloped Saf The Las Mato WHAT IS STRATEGY? ‘Strategy is an overall approach toa project It is sometimes called a gane plan The difference between strategy and tactics that e- tics get you dowen tothe "nity-geity” detalls of exactly how you Aare going to do the work. For example, I have decide that the best way to build a house Is o use prefabricated components, then {must work out how Tam going to actually make the components DoTassemblean entire wall and send it tothe jb sit or do make ‘tin small sections that can be joined together a the ste? Logistic involves hove Iam going to get the prefab parts xt to the sit, how Iwill supply the workers with tols and other equip- ‘ment, how I will feed them, and soon, Tactics and logistics will be ‘worked out in Step 6 ofthe flowchart during detailed implementa- tion planning ‘The Importance of Strategy ‘A manageronce told me that he could not hep engineers because the big manufacturers in his area could pay more, and no sooner would(CHAPTER? Dering Propet tay a beget ayoung engineer trained than a big company would steal that person. He decided to adopt a nev strategy. Instead of recruiting tginces, he would hire technicabschool graduates and teach them tobecengineers Since the big companies generally prefered engincers with] thecame a good pitcher when fouryear degrees, eH stopped trying to make them very seldom lst a tech- [arate tote ff missthe ball and started trying 1 Certainly his tech-achoo! ff make them itt engineers may not have Sandy out ‘ben quite as qualified as those with full degrees, ‘ut they were capable enough for his needs, and the cost of con stanly replacing engineers dropped dramatically. Ina simular ven, about 15 years ago the United States had shortage of programmers for several years, and many companies found that they could get programming done in India at consi Without competitors there would be no need for strategy. ~ Kenichi Ohmae= SECTION THREE Propet Pang ably less cost than if they had used local programmers do the work ‘The programmers in India speak good English, are well educated, and work for considerably less than American programmers since ‘hee cot of living s mach lower than that in the United States This strategy has been used fora numberof years to get procs done on time and at less expense than would otherwise be possible. When the Channel sas built connect France with England, the strategy was to start digging from both sides. Using laser: surveying methods, thecrews mt inthe mde with only negligible rrr in postion. This strategy allowed the projec to be completed {in about half the time it would have taken to dig from one side to the ather Because you can digonly so many feet per day. By going in both directions the digging speed was essentially doubled ‘My first engineering job was with a very small company that designed and built land mobile communications equipment. We had only 150 employees, and of course our engineering staff was very small There was no way that we could compete directly with the big players in the game, because they had far mote resources than wedi '5o one af our engineers conceived the idea of doing modu lar design of radios. Instead of having to design every new radio “om scratch,” we would design some circuits that could be used in all models. Good examples ae audio amplifies and intermediate frequency (EP strips. By employing this method, we were able to dlovelop 4 family of products in relatively short time. We were leveraging ou limited resources, ‘Ait Indstries has employed a similar strategy i its Airbus line of aircraft. In most cass, plots are trained to fly a single kind of airplane. Thus, a crew that can fly one plane cant fly one with the same design but a slightly diferent configuration, Airbus has several planes with diferent seating capacities that can all be flown by the same crews, The cockpit layouts are the sume, and the planes hhandle so similarly thatthe crews don’t have to be retrained toItisbetter ‘togiveaway he ‘woo! than thesheep. alan Prove ‘switch from one to the other. In addition, the attine does not have to stockas many different spare parts because the planesall use the same ones. This repeesens a significant savings in inventory cst, pilot raining and so on. ‘Bowing designed the 757 and 767 airplanes so that the same pilots can fly them as well Asis true fr Airbus, this saves money forthe airlines Project Strategy and Technical Strategy Ttturnsout that there are often two aspects o project strategy. Asan ‘example suppose you have to feed a group and you are considering ‘how to do it. You could (1) cook the meal Yourself, ) take everyone toa restaurant, @) have a potluck dinner, in which everyone brings something, or @) have a caterer deliver the food, You examine the Altematives and decide that you will cook the meal yourself. This 5 {your project strategy. But how will you cok the food?‘You could (1) cook it conventionally on your stove, 2) micro- ‘wave it; or @) have a backyard barbecue, These three approaches ‘would be called echnical stutegy. Your preference i to havea bick- yard barbecue, but you discover that your grills kaput. You dont ‘want o cook on the stove or microwave, s0 you decide to have the real catered, In other words, your choice of technical sttegy may {etermine your project strategy (ee Figure 72). ‘ina technologial company, for example, you are considering eveloping a product by employing a new technology. However, ‘no one inthe company knows anything about that technology, 80 you will have to either contract out that part ofthe work a project, strategy) or develop the capability. ‘A general guideline in selecting a technical strategy is that you dont want to havea very tight project deadline. Ofcourse, this rule Figueen ‘Th Difference betwaon Project and Technical Statepy Project Strategy “Technical Strategy [Cook food mysett| Jp | Backyard get Have it catered [Conventional stove Pot luck ainner Nicrowave oven [Go to restaurantCCAAETER? uv Pape ty = Js violated froquently in high-tech industries, but deadlines are also ‘missed occasionally an sometimes products are released that ater have feid problems. This can do serious damage to a company’ reputation. Relate to this rules that you should separate discovery from development ina project. Thal is, you dont want ta be tying to ‘make some technology work when you are supposed tobe devel ‘ping a product. The best approach isto doa feasibility study, and then, based on the outcome, launch a development project. Ifyou are trying to prove feasibility and develop a product atthe same time and you can make the technology work, that project will be judged a failure. Howover,no matter what result you get with a Feasibility tudy—yes, it works, ono, it doesnt—that should be judged a successful projec, as you have conclusively answered a ‘question. GENERATING AND CHOOSING THE CORRECT STRATEGY ‘As you can see from my model in Step 3 you genertea list of alter- native project and technical strategies that may apply to your pro ‘ect In Step 4 you select the combination that you judge to be bes. ‘Generating the list may bea simple as looking at existing strategies and listing them, or you may need t0 invent anew strategy. Note that this teptequires strategic or conceptual thinking. Individvals witha strong preference for quadrant-D thinking will be invaluable 22 this step, but if they are’ available, members with other think- ing preferences will have to “step into” the D quadrant to brain- storm strategies (se Figure 73. Inventing a Strategy ‘Asan example of this, Charis Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe deve- ‘oped an approach to problem solving tha was very rigorous. They convinced managers at General Motos to adopt it In fact, CM.Prindple: no existing strategy isaceptable,CHAPTER? tpn at Sry Pa you have to inventa strategy, youshould use creative problem- = salving methods. wanted most oftheir employees to be trained inthe new method. Kepner and Tregoe knew that they could not possibly train all of those poople themselves, so they were almost destroyed by their suecess 50 they conceived a new approach. They would train indi ‘duals within GM to deliver the taining, They conducted a series of trainthestrainer workshops and made GM self-sufficient in ding their own internal training. All Kepner and Tregoe had to do from that point on was ll the classroom materials to GM, and that, was how they mace their income This was an invented strategy at the time. It has become common since then. If you have to invent a strategy, you should use creative problem-solving methods. The most common one is brainstorm- ing, in which members of a group generate as many ideas as they can and, without evaluation, then select one. There are many other lpproaches for developing good ideas. One good source of tech- niques is the book by Michael Michalko, Thinkeroys OMichalko, 1885). A number of iea-generating methods were presented in Chapter 6,50 you may want to go back and review those‘Selecting Strategy Sometimes choosing a stitegy is 4 simple mater, However, a numer often are invaed the choice may note 50 eaby 10 make. A stepby-step procecore that will guige you trough the ‘process is presented a the end of this chapter, but you should lnderstand why the steps ate followed, not jst apply them na rote Wien you were generating eas for project strategy, you were in quadrant D ofthe Herrmann model To slet the best combi nation of project and technical strategy, quadanA thinking i reeded. Citic analysis required to sor through the facts and deals ofthe varius hoes, if you have no one on your eam ‘whois aly good a such thinking you shou temporarily ting Insomeone wh is Ranking the Alternatives ‘To select the best combination of strategies, you should rank both lists (project and technical suategosh The easiest way to do thsi to sea priority matrix as shown in Figure 74. There are several ways to go about this. One isto make each choice binary. Suppose, for ‘example, that have four strategies. IF Thad some way to rank them quantitatively, it would be easy to make a choice, but there may be a sumer of factors volved that affect the “measure” that each one ‘would yield, and it gets too complicated t work ott So simply ask myself fone strategy is better than another I the answer is "yes." ‘pat aonein the call, and fits "no," I puta zero. fT proceed across Row Land ask this question for Strategy 1 compared to each ofthe others, I get the result shown in Figure 74 This technique is called pune comparisons Next, I ask if Strategy 2 is better than each of the others. However, you will note that when I ask if Strategy 2is better thanCHARTER? Denpng oes sy rigunen ory Maier Feu Statoyos wth ow Fld | Strategy 1, [have already asked that question in Row 1, but in reverse So whatever I put in Row I under Stategy 2 must now be the inverse in Row 2, Column 1. This is shown in Figure 75 Poy Matixwith Row 26nd Colm Filed ia ro x | In faci turns out that as you continue with the matrix, you ‘will find tha every entry in Column 1 is gong tobe the inverse of ‘what is in Row 1, and thatthe same willbe true of every column entry below the diagonal, so you can save time by simply fling in the rows of the matrix above the diagonal and then filling in the colunns withthe inverse of their rows. The final result is shown in Figure 7sty Mavi A ris Flea eee ‘Next, you total each row, andthe row with the highest total ‘willbe yout ist choice, that with he nex-highest total wil be your second choice, and so on. IF you find that two rows add up othe ‘sume toa, just look in the matrix to see which ofthe two choices ‘utzans the other since that decision has aleeady boen made. The final result for this matricis shown in Figure 77, ‘Priority Matrix with Totals end Ranks Filed Ia ‘This ranking should ideally be done by a team. When this is the case, you can still deal with the steateges in a binary fashion, but now you ask your team members how many of them thinkthat Strategy 1 is better than Strategy 2, and you count the votes. ‘Suppose, for example, that you have 10 team members, counting yourself, and you ask fora comparison of Strategy 1 versus Strat egy 2. When you enter the votes, you put the votes for Strategy 1 in Row 1 and the votes for Strategy 2in Row 2, This is shown in Figure 78. ‘Mavic with ots Tlie for Sratogy I vorsus Stateay2 ‘Continue i ths manner nti you have completed all voting, and then total the votes in each rove This gives the resull shown in Figure79. This isa more finely tuned approach than using ones and 20108 a8 You did previously. atin Competed In and TotaledThe Analytical Hierarchy ‘The priority matrix can be enhanced by evaluating various atti ‘buts of each choice. As you can seein Step 4 of The Lewis Method, the first question is whether a given strategy can mest our PCTS. targets I may be that one choice will meet the CTS targets but is ‘not as good as another chive in meeting the performance objective Bat are P, CT, Sall of equal importance tothe project” Te could be that performance is most important and time is second, Graham and Englund (1997 have written that mind shares ‘what you want to achieve witha proc in onder to capture mar- ‘zt sha. For example, when someone mentions laser jet printers, Hewlett Packard wants everyone to think of their uns as the best lable. So performance may be the foremost requirement to be tet, Then may come time, scope, and cost. If weights are assigned to these, you would then have @ more complicate situation to analyze. "Now you would have to ask the question is Strategy 7 better than Strategy 2 in terms of performance? In terms oF cst? Time? ‘Scope? And you would tally the votes fr all four criteria for ech paired comparison. To arrive aa america weight for exch choice Involves matrix algebra, which I long, ago forgot and which is best, clone with software program called Expert Choice®, The program allows comparisons between quantitative and qualitative facets of a choize, making itan extremely powerful way of arvivin aa correct decision. To find out more about the software, check out the Web site at worwexpertchoie com. ‘Conducting SWOT and Risk Analysis In choosing the best project strategy itis a good idea todo a SWOT and risk analysis. The acronym SWOT stands for strengths, eu ese, opportuiies, and Hats. isa technique that was originally‘sed in marketing analysis, Before entering a new market iis use fu ask the following questions: ‘What are our strengths? How can we take advantage of them? ‘What weaknesses do we have? How do we minimize the ffct of then? ‘What opportunities does this market offer us? How can we capitalize oa then? ‘What threats exist that may impact our success? How can we eal effectively with them? ‘Thebest way toda aSWOT analysis isto simply fil inthe forms shown n Figure 710.1 do suggest that you identify ll the strengths Yyoucan thinkof nd then ansiver the question of haw totakeadvan- tage of them, rather than identifying a given strength followed ‘immediately by how to deal with it in particular. This procedure goes faster a8 rule. The same goes for the other thece concerns, Threats versus Risks ‘Notice that Question 2in Step 4 asks if SWOT and risks are okay. ‘The difference between risks an threat is that a sk s something that can simply happen—an accident, an act of nature, ora missed sleadline—wheres a threat is something that may be posed by Another entity Itmay bea competitor who beats you to market for example For practical purposes, tt okay to combine threats and risks, because ether way you look at it they both jeopardize the project sfthey happen. Furthermore, itis not enough #0 simply identify risks and threats. The question is, what are you going to do about them? The essential points that threats and sks should be managed so that they dont ease the project to falieee wWuog s1Sh(eUy LOMSCHAPTER? Devtpng pet uy a _Threatsare done to usby outside entities. ‘There are two points in planning a project where rsks should beanalyzed and managed. The fists toadressrsks tothe seategy itselt For example, employing cutting-edge technology ina product development project is more risky than using proven technology. Unless the benefits to be gained far exceed the cost of failure the cuttingedge approach would be undesirable. Even if the cutting ‘edge strategy is chosen ii good idea to havea contingency plan in place in case the strategy proves to be unworkable. You also need to manage risks during implementation plan ning. Many things can go wrong in the executicn af a project plan, And if these ate slentifed ahead of ime, plans can be developes to ‘deal with them. You can sometimes eliminate arskaltogether with ‘small change in your approsch tothe proc. As my colleague, iarvey Levine, sys it is better to avoid risks than to have to deal ‘with them. Risk management is covered in detail in Chapter Il, For nov, ‘suffice to say that there are four primary responses 0 risk 1. Mitgation—you do something to correct for the damagea SECTION THREE Pct ang 22, Avoidance—you attempt to avoid the risk inthe frst place. 3, Transfer—you transfer the risk to someone else. Insurance san example of sk transfer. Contracting work another party is also form of risk transfer, 4. Accommodate—you accep the risk and take no particular steps to deal witht, We do this when we drive our cars (though wearing seat bliss an attempt to minimize the impact ofan accident should you have ono. Unintended Consequences ‘An unintended consequence is something that happens because of the action you have taken to solve one problem. For example, yo decide to contract work to an outside vendor, and the consequence isthat you love control ofthat part ofthe project. Or you push every ‘oneto complete a project by acertain dat, and they unintentionally scrifce quality (performance in the process. ‘Unintended consequences are all around us. It has been said that most of today’s environmental problems are the consequence ‘oF soltions to yesterdays problems. [also believe that many orge nizational problems are the consequences of actions and decisions ‘made previously to solve problems, For that reason itis important to ask yourself if your chosen project strategy i going t lead to serious consequences that may actualy be worse than the problem ‘you were trying to solve when you solected that strategy. ‘Asan example, several years ago, I decked to change my way ‘of printing seminar workbooks, Previously, had typed the text on nny computer and left space for ilusrations. We then pasted the far into the placeholders, These masters were copied and used t0 reproduce the workbooks in quantity The problem was thatthe final workbook, a second-generation copy, had lest some qual. was also difficult to revise the copy. A significant change couldCHANT? Denning ope etsy a cause ge ube to chang, eing new paste. This was time-consuming, ‘Toremedy this, decided to ullize desktop publishing forthe "workbooks In doing so | found that some of the art wouldn't san without being degraded. Also, the computer would occasionally crash for some reason, costing time to redo the files. To make a Jong story short although there were times when I questioned the ‘wisdom of my decision, convinced that this was the right stat- egy for the long run. When [frst wrote this, desktop publishing was to some degeee in its infancy I is now the only method that anyone in her right mind would conser, and with the prevalence Of digital cameras and high-bandwideh Internet connections, i is wery easy to obtain and process digital images. Ihave lft the ‘example in here illustrate how rapidly our technology is chang ing, and itis certainly having its effect on the management of projects) Force-Fild Analysis ‘Organizations and projects are by nature, political The basienature ‘of politics i that people try to gain and keep power. They choose sides on various tsues and then try to have tir sie “win” This cam affect a project when a certain strategy is not acceptable to cer tain individuals or groups ‘As an example, a facilities engineer once told me about an cexperience he ad in refurbishing an office, He arranged todo the Job over the plant shutdown that occurred for about a week around Christmas. He convinced some people from the plan to help move furniture, lay carpet, and paint walls and paid them triple time because they were working during a holiday period. They com pletely overhatled the ofie, and it was ready for occupancy when the plant resumed its normal operation. ‘Tohis chagrin, when he walked into the office on the frst day the union steward was talking with the engineers boss, He was‘outraged. “We would normally have taken several months to do that jo” he snavled, “Now management knows that it can be done in es ime” ashe him the boss response "You should have known beter," his boss told him. This isa good example of a strategy that would have boon rejected fit had been suggested tothe union steward before the fat. Force-field analysis isa process by which yous consider all ‘ofthe forces in the environment that may cause Your strategy to succeed o fil because of is acceptance or rejection by the pat ties involved. Essentially this entails paying attention to the poli tics of the project, and this is sometimes overlooked by project, managers ‘The process isto identify parties that may acept or reject a strategy, asess the strength oftheir support or resistance and dete ‘mine then whether your strategy can succeed. Te basic lea is that the total strength othe supporting forces must exceed the strength ofthe resisting forces, or you cant make your strategy work Such an analysis is shown in Figure Zi “The difficulty with this approsch lies in trying to quantity the forces. leansider an attempt to do #0 a veryiffy proposition. On top ‘ofthat, when we sum the resisting forces to get atta, we assume that all resistance i the same, and this may not be valid, You may ‘beadding apples and oranges Isuggest that you forget about trying to quantity the forces and concentrate instead on managing, es tance. Afterall the positive forces are going to help yo. Yo may, ‘of course ryt bolster them oF add to them. “There are four approaches to dealing with resistance: 4 Ignore it 2. Overcome it 8. Goaround it 4. Neutralize iFieunem FercoFell als (oy Foreesield Analysis.) Ni +} Top management support Public concern<—1—* Enthusiostic We dont do <—l—» Support of It that way fimctionel groups ‘round here! Notes NH mene no nerd ho ‘eo tne ores sos rom een other are not opposter ot ‘20h chor Thy rest ran hs way fr appearance. | Ignore t ‘There are times when you should ignore resistance. Ifyou pay at tention toi, you may simply make it grow. This is valid when the resistance is ow level, or the resistant person i in no position to do you any harm. The danger is that you may underestimate the level ‘of resistance. In any case if you later find that you should not haveignored someone’ estan, you can adopt one ofthe next hee approaches Overcome it “This i one of the most common approaches to resistance. You try to counter the person’ resistance by arguing against Suppose, for example, thata person objects ta strategy for reasons of safety You try to convince him that his concerns are unwarranted. He counters your argument with expressions of srong fear that some ‘one will be injured and bring lavsuitagainst the company: You Zo Dbackand forth, offering argument and counterargument, until you fare convinced that he isa stubborn opponent who will never “see the ight" OF course he thinks the same thing about you. What has happened is thatthe strength of your opposing arguments has siz ply grown, and neither of you has been able to convince the other of the correctness of your positon “The nature ofthis conflict fs » move-countermove exchange, hich is calle ae tout en, This mens that there almost ‘no way thatthe game can end because there ate no rues within the system for changing its own behavior (For more on this, see Watz- lasek etal, 197) ‘When you see that you are geting into a game-withoutend, interaction, I suggest that you try another approach. Otherwise ‘you may’ simply strengthen your opponeat. In addition, even if you ‘were able to convince him of your postion, he has invested so much energy in his own point of view that to change now would make him lose face, which he may be very reluctant to do “Much has been written about the effects of fighting resistance in the past decade. An example is that waging, war on drugs has actually magnified the problem creating a lucrative busines forthe ‘drug dealers and generating a “druge fighting” machine with tho sands officers. Iisa war that we probably can never end, and it seems to havea secondary outcome that s very undesirable—sshen somethings prohibited it becomes even more dsivable. WeshouldCHAPTER? oolgig rope uy au have learned this in the days of prohibition of alcohol, but unfort- nately such lessons seem to be hard to learn. o Around it ‘To go around someone means that you got that perso’s bess and ask thatthe boss havea "hearttg-hear” talk with your opponent ‘This might work, but you might very well regret your action in the Jong run ts generally not considered avery wise choice. The only ‘exception would be when some serious safety issue is involved and you have made no headway with other tactic. Otherwise, his ‘Should bea Tas resort Neutralize it ‘The word suggests that you are going to blast your opponent off the face ofthe earth—and you may well wish you could do so—but that {sna the meaning of neutralize inthis ease. Here it means that you {ty to find a way to dispel the person's resistance. “The simplest approach is to ask the individual, "What would 1 Ihave to do to convince you that this sa good strategy?" “The person has two possible responses. One isto tell you to forget about trying to convince her. She isnever going to accep this strategy. When I got this very negative response, ask, "Really? There's bsolutely nothing 'ean do to convince you? the person is wiling to meet you even partway, you will usu- ally get the second response which is, “Oh, I suppose if you cold do whatever iia would be convinced.” The nice thing about this is that you no longer have to try to find out how to convince the individual, because she has told you suggest that, even if you are able to do what the person sug- sess, you ask f there is anything else you need todo The reason is that you may do what was orginally requested, only to have the per son say, “Well Ist have this concern..." By taking care of ll her ‘concerts a one time, you avoid the sense of playing games ater on.Poopl, Problems, and Projects 1 find that very few people take force-field analysis seriously. Im not sure why. Fethaps they dont fel that they have the skills to deal ‘with resistance, Maybe they think that the resistance will go away fonce the person ses thelogicof the strategy. Orit could be that they fare simply underestimating its importance. This isa serious error of judgment Recently I met witha com> pany that sells heavy equipment and has developed software that lows users fo get maximum advantage from the equipment. The ser, recognizing this almost immediately, is eager to purchase the sotware “The dificuky is with the company’s own sales force For years they have sold heavy equipment They don’ know or care anything about software. They are resisting the neve system, This sa good example ofa paradigm shift. The old paradigen is thatthe company sells equipment. The new ane is tht it sells a system in which the sofware males the equipment more usefulCHAPTER? Dentin Sty an ‘The inital response to all paradigm shifts is rejection, For ‘ccample when Henry Ford invented the automobile, people thought it was very impractical, After all, they argued, where was anyone {going to got gasoline for 12 Indeed, the infrastructure needed to ‘support the ato did not exist at that time, How many people ignored the impact ofthe personal com: puter believing that it could never replace a mainframe unit? Overcoming resistance to a paradigm shift is very diffcul, Usually evidence of the validity ofthe new paradigm growsto such ‘8 point that people can no longer reject it and then there isa land slide of acceptance, This is shown in Figure 712. Figure "Arcoplance ofa Parad Sit ACCEPTANCE TIMEpa SECTION THREE Prop ani Some organizations have to accept that there will be a few employees who will not accept the new paradigm. These people become casualties of the changing direction of the business. This is unfortunate, but given the potential strength of resistance to change, it may be unavoidable. However is always worth trying, the strategy that I outlined earlier ack the person what you must «do to convince her of the soundness ofthe new paradigm. Ifyou areal gt patie reponse, you can sot some cer The important point is that projects often get into far more trouble becase of these “people” issues than they do because the schedule was incorrect of because someone didnt plan properly ‘As I said at the beginning ofthe book, sucessful projects can be achieved only when tools, people, and systems are jointly opt- mized. Unfortunately the people side ofthe equation is more often ‘overlooked than the other wo, PUTTING IT ALLTOGETHER Following is a step-by-step procedure for developing and selecting roject strategy. Steps 3t0 5 of The Lewis Method Project strategy describes, overall how the job wl be done ‘This is sometimes caida game plan. You should consider both project strataias and technical strategies when appropriate Since these may interact, the choice of atechncal strategy may affect you project strategy, and vice versaBrainstorm alist of alternative projet and technical strato ies. Remember, in breinstorming, theres no evaluation oF critiism until afterall ideas have been sted (nce the project strategies have ben listed, rank thom using the privity matrix presented inthis chapter. Do the same for technical strategies 'sthe number one technical strategy compatible with the rurmber one project strategy? If not, decide which pair of the two wil be compatible before continuing, Forthe chosen stratogies, can you moot your performance, cost, time, and scape targets? tyes,” continua to Step 5.1 “no. then select another strategy to evaluate. Continue this process uni the answers "yes." Filin a SWOT form, in which you combine threats and risks. Don't other t fin the right panel of the threat portion of the form at this tie. Note that you are doing this for strat- ‘egy oly nat for implementation steps. Nex, filinarsk analysis form in which you calculate REN. (risk priority numbers) for all threats and risks. (You will have tread Chaptor 1! todo this.) Fora iss that havea severity of to 10 points, you must find contingency to deal with the riek, Remember, you can void, mitigate, or transfer isk Fora iss that have high products regardless of sever ity) you shoud identify ways in which these RPNs can be reduced, either by reducing probability or severity or by improving detection Are ay risks serious enaugh thatthe stratagy may not ‘work? If se, you may have to spect the next strategy in your priority matrix‘ML Are any identified weaknesses serious enaugh that they may inopardze the strategy? Can they be overcome? If nt, then Youmay needto select thenext strategy in your matrix. ‘1, Now consider consequences. Wil the chosen strategy lead to unacceptable consaquences?Ifso, you may have to rojact the strategy. 12, Finally, conduct force-field snalysis in which youdentfy ‘the pasive forces inthe environment that wil help your strategy succeed and te negative forces that may do the ‘oppasite. These forces can be political, socal, or paradigm issues, Than ak yoursel {Cant ignore ay resisting forces? tyes, cross them off your ist. not, then ask: 4 Canthe remaining forcas be overcome? If nt, thon as «Cant go around them without creating enemies for it? Hot, then ask 4. Can! nautraize thom by asking the folowing question: "What must do to convince you that this strategy is okay?”