Delivering the Future

into the Present:

Fulfilling Mission and Vision through Portfolio
Priorities and Project Execution
Delivering the Future into the Present | Table of Contents

Table of Contents

I. Preface (Organizational Layers)

II. Introduction (Initiatives drive your mission)

III. Strategy (The Strategy for Successful PPM)

a. Challenges
i. Evolve or Die
ii. Interdepartmental Compatibility
b. Solutions
i. Project Portfolio Management Process

IV. Execution
a. Challenges
i. Meeting the Original Business Case
1. Initial Specifications
2. Ongoing Governance
ii. Having the Skills Needed to Deliver
b. Execution Solutions
i. People
ii. Technology
iii. Governance
iv. Process

V. Change Process
i. Assess your current state
ii. Define your desired future state
iii. Build a business strategy

VI. Conclusion

VII. Additional Resources

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Preface: Organizational Layers

Figure 1: Vision Layers

Preface:
Organizational Layers

Throughout the paper, we will be referring to three layers of Mission and Vision, with each layer having
its own major process groups, or nested methodology. In order to make clear which layer we are
referring to, we have broken them down into different levels.

There is a Mission and Vision that the organization as a whole is striving toward. This makes up Level
1, or the Organizational Layer.

The Organizational Vision gets executed through Project Portfolio Management (PPM), which is Level 2
or the Project Layer.

Finally, there is a methodology for improving how your organization changes. This is a project whose
objective is improving projects, or the Project-Project Layer. This meta-layer is Level 3.

The above graphic illustrates these different layers. Throughout the paper we will refer to the different
kinds of Vision and Execution as Level 1 (Organizational), Level 2 (Project or PPM), and Level 3
(Project-Project or Meta).

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Introduction: Initiatives Drive Your Mission & Obstacles for Delivering on the Mission

Introduction:
Initiatives Drive Your Mission

Every organization has an ultimate Mission that all

of their long-term goals, yearly portfolios,
quarterly outlooks and daily operations are
striving to fulfill. The Mission often sounds simple
on its surface, but there is an array of initiatives
that are critical to achieving it and limited
resources to dedicate to these initiatives.

The Mission is your organization's ultimate

destination, and projects are the vessel that get
you there, with Organizational (or Level 1) Vision Figure 2: Accomplishing Organizational Mission

and Strategy guiding you in the right direction.

Every organization, then, needs a core PPM layer. Failures of execution is what most
competency in how to define what the “best” often keeps organizations from delivering on
projects are, and then they need to successfully what they set out to do. To use an example
execute projects in order to continually progress from the IT world, 68% of projects in that
toward the organization’s Vision for the future. industry fail. This means that an effective
system for delivering the project portfolio is
When projects are chosen that don’t enable the
often the differentiator for organizations that
Mission, then an organization is set down the
ultimately accomplish their Mission.
wrong road before the journey's even begun, or
when a slate is selected that allows for too much
risk, then the trip is setup for potential disaster.
Obstacles for Delivering the
Mission
At the base of the pyramid above is the execution
on the mission-critical initiatives themselves. This You can dive even deeper within the project
is where the gears of Levels 1 and 2 engage, going portfolio (Level 2) to find the predictable points
from the high-level Organizational view to the of pain in the organization. There are two

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Strategy Challenges
gears that drive projects—Strategy and
Execution—and they need to be fully engaged in
order to succeed. This paper will investigate the
challenges for both Strategy and Execution on
both the Organizational and Project Layer (Levels
1 and 2), providing solutions that will ensure
success for the initiatives and for the organization
as a whole.
Within Strategy, we will cover: having a Mission,
Envisioning a Future State for the organization,
assessing the Current State, and creating a tactical
plan to get from here to there.
Within the tier of Execution, we will cover: People,
Technology and Governance, and demonstrate
how to engage Process with each of these to
ensure the rubber meets the road.
Strategy Challenges:
Evolve or Die
The major contemporary challenge for
organizational strategy is the need for constant
adaptability to change market conditions.
The global economic crisis of 2008 has effected a
New Normal in the business world, characterized
by an intolerance for failure that doesn’t allow for
do-over opportunities in the a marketplace.
Optimal realization of portfolio ROI was always a
nice idea that a company could do to improve
their business processes, but now it’s a must in
order to simply stay alive on a global stage.
If you don’t achieve the Level 2 (PPM) Strategy,
you’re going to go extinct.
Adaptability in the world isn't just for profitability
either. Businesses face the constant ebb and flow
of “fluid requirements” that exist in almost
every facet of business operations.
Organizations are accountable to dynamic
external stakeholders—new legislation,
changes in community needs, ever-evolving
technology, increased globalization—which
forces business to change their direction and
priorities constantly, often in ways that are
difficult to track and quantify.
This all means that legacy business cases from
yester-year do not necessarily apply anymore,
and even the business case that was made for
a project in the definition phase might not still
apply by the time the project is executed.
These realities obviate the need for both a
more intensive process for the original
business case and for a nimble, ongoing
governance of the projects in the portfolio.
Annual planning cycles face serious pressure to
make this process as fluid as the requirements
in the marketplace.
With so many possible strategic scenarios, it's
difficult to maintain a coherent view of each
strategic scenario and how they interface with
each other as well as the ever-changing
environment.
These challenges are compounded by a
reduced margin for error. There's more
pressure than ever from external stakeholders
for maximal profitability, forcing organizations
to redefine strategies often.
In short, an organization needs to have a
strategy of adaptability that itself adapts
frequently with little margin of error for any of
its iterations. This is a truly holistic difficulty
that should set the stage for the challenges
that follow.
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Strategy Challenges & Solving the Strategy Challenges
Interdepartmental Compatibility
Enterprise organizations rely on multiple
departments working separately to achieve the
Organizational Mission. While they may all be
working toward the same long-term goal, the
immediate and short term goals often seem at
odds with each other, which creates various
strategic challenges.
In such a heterogeneous organization, it is
difficult to have a clear top-to-bottom message
with clear communication between each link in
the chain: from stakeholders, to management, to
employees, and even to the external stakeholders
that were discussed in the previous section.
Maintaining a clear, consistent message can be
like playing Whisper down the Lane with a
thousand people.
Even when an organization manages to deliver an
organizational message consistently, it requires
so much repetition that it may seem impossible to
sustain energy in the message. As Christopher J.
Nassetta, the chief of Hilton Worldwide, warns:
“You can find yourself communicating the same
thing so many times that you get tired of hearing
it. And so you might alter how you say it, or
shorthand it, because you have literally said it so
many times that you think nobody else on earth
could want to hear this.”
These goals need to be much more than an
aphorism. They need to be translated into
metrics that can quantify the organization's
progress toward the goals.
The next challenge, then, is developing shared
interdepartmental Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs). As organizations become more complex,
your “Scoreboard” needs to be simplified and
standardized in order for it to be relatable and
updateable across all departments.
Interdepartmental cohesion is further
complicated when different departments,
programs, and even projects are drawing from
the same resource pool. There can be
confusion and in-fights over money, people,
and priorities when departments and project
managers are concerned about the success of
their own segment of the organization.
Often the problem is even more fundamental:
the organization doesn't have a reliable means
of determining what resource capacity they
have in the first place to fulfill which demands.
Balancing demands with ongoing business
performance is a difficulty that often keeps
organizations under-utilizing what they have to
invest. The optimal amount of projects don't
get done; therefore the mission doesn't get
fully fulfilled.
Solving the Strategy
Challenges:
Project Portfolio Management Process
(Level 2)
In the “Evolve or Die” section, we used the
analogy of mass extinctions when talking about
the New Normal in the business environment.
Organisms survive these cataclysms through
an evolutionary process. In evolution, change
occurs haphazardly, through random
mutations that have no “end state” in mind.
There was not a single human ancestor who
decided to have genes that allowed for the
development of a larger brain that was better
fit for solving problems. It happened by a
complete chance of genetic mutation, but once
the strain appeared, the survival of such an
advantageous quality was inevitable.
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Solving the Strategy Challenges & Execution
Organizations, on the other hand, are filled with
smart organisms that should take a lesson from
intelligent design. You take chance out of the
equation by taking deliberate steps to avoid
extinction through planned change. You ought to
be moving purposefully toward an end state that
makes you best adjusted for the business
environment.
Project-oriented organizations achieve
adaptability by systematically determining what
projects to do in the first place and continually
considering if those projects are still the right
ones to be investing resources in.
The science of selecting the optimal slate of
projects is Project Portfolio Management (PPM). It
is a methodology that is geared toward a more
objective approach to constructing an optimal
portfolio of projects that effectively delivers the
future (i.e. The Vision). The business case process
is often built around expert judgement by
experienced stakeholders who dictate what needs
to be done to achieve the Organizational Vision.
This helps organizations achieve the ideal of a
One Company Culture. When resources are
assigned to a specific department, it is not a move
of favoritism, but the decision is driven by a
process of considering business cases, doing an
analysis for which portfolio of initiatives would
maximize on investment, and assigning the
resources necessary to achieve this portfolio.
This way, resource allocation is defined by the
Organizational Mission and the scoreboards are
centered around the business objectives that are
met through various projects.
Figure 3: Project Portfolio Management Methodology (Level 2)
Organizations keep up with the rate of change
by having a formal project portfolio selection
process in Level 2 that maximizes ROI given
their level of risk tolerance and other business
case considerations. Then, an Enterprise
Project Management Office oversees the
projects, monitoring and ensuring adherence
to their original case throughout the changes of
the project itself and of the surrounding world.
Execution
Once the correct projects are selected, they
need to be delivered. We are now at the wide
base of the pyramid in Figure 2. As the saying
goes, “A mediocre strategy well executed is
better than a great strategy poorly executed.”
This section will cover the challenges and
solutions for management and oversight of this
crucial component.
The Project Portfolio Management process will
be dedicated to selecting the right projects, but
then there is doing those projects right. This
section will be dedicated to meeting the criteria
for a successful project, which is delivering a
project on specification, on budget, and on
schedule.
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Challenges

Execution Challenges objectives. As we covered in the “Strategy

Challenges” section, the dynamic business
Meeting the Original Business Case: environment may cause the objectives and/or
Initial Specifications and Ongoing the means for achieving that objective to

Governance change before the project can complete.

The most important element of a successful Because of this, a project can deliver on the

project is meeting the business case and original original specifications, but still not be aligned

scope of the project. with the business objectives it was meant to

achieve.

The pass-off from strategy to execution is the first

challenge. In the portfolio stage we decided what Things change, projects drift, business

projects are best to support the Organizational objectives evolve. It requires an airtight

Vision and Strategy. The initial output from the process to make sure that changes are

portfolio process (specifications) may have vague identified, acknowledge, and revised in a way

language surrounding important dimensions of a that’s complementary to the original

project. For example, a capital project might have expectations. There are often deficiencies

a requirement that merely says “Improve system somewhere in the following process:

performance” with no associated qualifications or

quantifications. 30% improvement in system
performance will have different associated cost
and schedule from 10% improvement, so any
plans and baselines developed without clear
knowledge of the full scope will create a variance
right off the bat. If either through the
specification process or—worse
yet—implementation and close-out process, the
stakeholder informs the project manager that
they have different expectations from what is
Figure 4: Project Tracking and Revision Process
being delivered, then the project will be in great
danger of missing either its scope, budget,
schedule, or business case (e.g. ROI or solution Any gap in the process will lead to
objectives). This can especially be a challenge if misalignment that requires a scope, schedule,
the definition process is missing subject matter and/or scope change. Often a large difficulty
experts, a rigorous project definition process, here is for the stakeholder to expect and
and/or project management expertise to apply understand the costs associated with not only
the process. the changes themselves but with the impact
analysis process. Impact analysis is typically not
Poor oversight and governance throughout the budgeted, requires critical project resources, is
execution process can continue to hurt the disruptive to the current “status quo” and
project's achievement of the original business consumes project funding. The saying in

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Challenges
project management is, “Yes, we do charge for
estimates.”
Another challenge for governance is properly
managing risk, especially in monitoring and
responding to project risks during execution.
Executives have enough “real” problems to
address that they often do not want to focus on
problems that not only do not exist yet but might
not ever actualize. It takes a well-oiled process to
have the project manager dedicate the bandwidth
to continually monitor the risks, have the
fortitude to report negative findings to the
stakeholder, and for the stakeholder to know
when a significant change is needed, even pulling
the plug on the project altogether when
necessary. Most organizations have difficulty with
at least one stage of that process, which often
leaves the benefits of risk management
unrealized.
Organizational self-awareness is a virtue that
allows you to know what you can really expect
when the roadmap is constructed. Organizational
Change should happen incrementally, happening
in feasible leaps. Below is a Maturity Model for
incrementally improving an organization's
enterprise management.
Having the Skills Needed to Deliver
The next challenge is that many organizations
simply do not have the horses in the stable to
execute their initiatives. This can come in the
form of not having enough people or not having
the appropriate skills; it can also come at the
management level or at the practitioner level, and
any combinations of those possibilities. Each of
these permutations will be redressed in the
Execution Solutions section.
Even with the right people available, they can
still underperform. Team building and
personal growth activities are often not taken
seriously.
When the team atmosphere is not strong, it is
then susceptible to people problems. Rather
than trying to solve these problems, many
organizations immediately resort to
compromise-oriented solutions, which leaves
all parties dissatisfied. After enough
compromises, it can chip at team morale. This
is exacerbated when project managers are
asked to make to keep the schedule and
budget as originally defined and the team is
asked to take on the challenges of fitting an
oversized reality into a under-sized budget and
schedule.
When things get truly bad, there is attrition
with necessary resources leaving the team that
then need to be replaced, further delaying the
project and costing the organization money.
Managing the Project Plan and
Schedule
The above challenges have, as yet, hardly
touched on the project and program managers'
main duties once the project is being executed.
The project manager should spend the
duration of the project tracking variances and
adjusting the plan and schedule accordingly.
The first difficulty in tracking project progress is
defining the appropriate level of detail and key
measurements (e.g. labor, cost, and schedule)
to enable effective measurement of progress.
The more detailed and more frequent, the
more able the project manager is to identify
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Challenges & Execution Solutions
and communicate the potential gaps between the
original expectations and the present reality;
however, daily tracking is generally too granular
to provide useful information on the larger
picture of a project. One the common challenges
in this stage is the lack of time many Project
Managers have when managing multiple project
and multiple stages of execution. One of the keys
to this stage, then, is finding just the right level of
control that is responsive while being realistic and
actionable.
Another common difficulty is tracking the critical
path. Many organization do not require their
project manager to track it all, despite the critical
information it offers. Many project managers also
have difficulty identifying and managing the
critical path. When a project manager does not
recognize where slack is in a project, they either
become inflexible with their schedule or they
make changes to the tasks that have an outgrown
impact on the project as a whole.
Another challenge is fighting the ongoing battle to
ensure that plans are resource leveled, while
actual work betrays expectation, people take
vacation, tasks get delayed, and so forth. A single
Figure 5: Network Diagram View of the Critical Path in Microsoft Project
project delay among any of the projects could
have a significant ripple effect that requires the
teamwork of multiple managers to resolve.
The interrelatedness of different
projects—which share resources and
deliverables—complicates things even further.
Finally, as has already been referenced over
and again, ongoing communication about
project progress with stakeholders is critical.
Project managers must communicate project
milestones and budget performance in real
time or else the project status is not credible,
the opportunity to control the project through
effective communicating is lost. Organizations
that do not require this communication dilute
the responsibility of the project manager by not
know when and why projects have gone off
track.
Execution Solutions
The critical elements of successful project
execution are People, Process, Technology, and
Governance. Success is consistently delivered
when all of these dimensions are well defined,
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Solutions
fully implemented, well-managed, and fully
adopted. They must be both adopted individually
and integrated together to enable each other for
success.
People
The largest portion of these dimension is the
People. In the last section, we covered four
permutations of challenges an organization can
have with regards to its people: a shortage of
practitioners, a missing competency among the
practitioners, a shortage of leaders, and a lack of
leadership skill.
The solution to a shortage of practitioners and
leaders is the same: project staffing. Whether
that means finding help within the organization,
hiring new people through your own Human
Resources department, or outsourcing the
process altogether, the below graphic provides
the process for how this is delivered
Figure 6: Project Staffing Process
While the process is the same, the stakes are
higher for finding project leadership talent.
Project managers should not be treated like a
commodity; the “products” are not
interchangeable, and choosing the wrong product
costs an organization’s time, dollars, morale,
and efficiency. The impact of a poor hire is
multiplied when it occurs at position as crucial
as project manager. It is important then to
place a priority on getting the best fit available,
rather than giving into the urgency of
unrealistic schedule and budget expectations.
In this case, haste truly makes waste.
If there is a lack of skills among the
practitioners, then the solution is training,
coaching, and mentoring in the specific
competency that needs development. If there
is a lack of skill among leadership, then the
solution can be more complex because the
necessary skills of leaders do not always easily
coexist within an organizations politics. As the
old fable has it, being a good project manager
often means pointing out that the Emperor has
no clothes, which a savvy person who is
conscientious of their job security might not be
willing to do if it means getting the guillotine.
Organizations, then, often focus on the
functional skills necessary to be qualified as a
project manager, but what separates qualified
project managers from bona fide project
leaders are the soft skills that are difficult to
spot. The below graphic shows the difference
between the skills that often get managers
hired, and the necessary traits for that
manager to have a meaningful impact on the
organization:
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Solutions
Figure 8: Functional skills (bare minimum qualification for a
project manager) versus Leadership Skills
The dimension of “People” goes beyond the literal
humans running the ship. It refers to the entire
structure that allows them to be effective. So
organizational structure, organizational
incentives, organizational framework, job
descriptions, et al falls under People.
Technology
In our Information Age efficiency and efficacy is
often defined by the Technology an organization
has adopted. Note the use of the term “adopted.”
It is not enough for an organization to own a
Technology, or even for it to be implemented.
What determines the efficacy of the solution is
how fully it is adopted into the organization and
integrated into its People and Process.
It is impossible to speak of Technology in a
general sense because needs are specific to an
organization. What can be said for all
organizations is that the business and functional
requirements for a technology solution needs to
be synchronized with the time-phased Maturity
Model that was covered in the Strategy Solutions
section.
Governance
Governance has two prongs of attacks:
a. Successful execution of the
projects themselves, and
b. Compliance to the overall
process for how projects should
be executed and delivered. In
other words, this the formal
process of Change
Management, or as we
described in the Strategy
section, how you “change the
way you change.”
There needs to be a well-defined set of KPIs for
ensuring alignment of results of execution
against the business cases that were defined at
the portfolio level. You might meet the specs,
but the results still needs to be held against the
business case—for example, if the market
changes. There needs to be a on ongoing
execution governance body, such as a steering
committee, ensuring that the project is
continuing to be held against the current
environment, updating risk assessments, and
so forth.
A well-articulated governance process does not
automatically do the governing. The process of
effectively governing a project during execution
is also not a native competency for steering
committees. The governance process and the
governing body must harmonize for proper
governance to take place.
Process
We saved Process for last because the most
important part of Process isn't a solution unto
itself, but rather a wrapper around the other
solution areas.
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Solutions
The execution process relies on the side-by-side
processes of lifecycle and project management, as
shown below:
Project management provides a set of “business
control” processes that enable the project
manager to deliver a project to an “on-time” and
“on-budget” completion. The project management
process tends to be fairly similar in a broad
variety of project types, regardless of the project
lifecycle management methods that are used to
deliver the project.
Figure 9: Project Management Process Overview
The deliverables of a project are conceived,
designed, developed and tested through
project lifecycle management processes that
typically vary widely across many different
industries. These project lifecycles document
the processes that ultimately become the
project tasks that need to be performed to
complete the project with “high-quality” (i.e.,
“on specification”).
The following illustration shows some project
lifecycles that are common in the world of
project management. This illustration is
provided to show how these lifecycles
conceptually fit into the overall environment in
which projects typically occur.
For these customized processes, The Process
needs to drive the People, Technology and
Governance (and not the other way around).
This will ensure each dimension is integrated
and enabling each other toward the corporate
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Delivering the Future into the Present | Execution Solutions & Analysis/Vision/Roadmap

strategy, which informs the Organizational Goals, The best practice for a custom gap analysis is
Vision, and Mission. built upon a three-phase initiative:
1. Assess the current state,
2. Define your desired future state, and
3. Build a business strategy (a plan for
change) that will bridge the gap
between the two.

This Analysis-Vision-Roadmap initiative is the

“Project Project,” or Meta-Layer we referenced
in the Preface. The “Vision” in this case is not
the overall Organizational Vision that has been
discussed hitherto in this paper; rather, it is the
Level 3 Vision for improving the PPM Layer,
which will in turn enable the organization to
reach its greater Vision.
For these customized processes, The Process
needs to drive the People, Technology and
Governance (and not the other way around). This
will ensure each dimension is integrated and
enabling each other toward the corporate
strategy, which informs the Organizational Goals,
Vision, and Mission.

Analysis / Vision / Roadmap

(Level 3)

Simply knowing what the Strategy and Execution

processes should look like doesn’t make your
organization successful. You also need a process
for change so that you can achieve those strategic
and actionable ideals.

In order to achieve the Level 1 Vision, a subset of

the portfolio must be dedicated to a series of
initiatives to define and build the appropriate
PPM structure to enable the delivery of the Vision.
A traditional gap analysis is often customized to
Figure 10: Analysis/Vision/Roadmap key
solve the structural problem to define an components, activities and deliverables

appropriate approach to ensure that the portfolio

is defined, managed, and delivered as expected.

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Analysis/Vision/Roadmap

Let’s cover each of these steps individually: The answers you collect from this assessment
should provide a situational awareness of
1. Current State Assessment where the starting point. This provides crucial
The current state assessment is as much about context as the PPM Vision is determined.
evaluating the business environment as it is about Organizational self-awareness is a virtue that
examining your own organization. Given the allows you to know what you can really expect
conditions of the economic climate and goals of when the roadmap is constructed.
the Organizational Vision and Strategy, what types Organizational Change should happen
of organizations are going to survive? What incrementally, happening in feasible leaps.
qualities will be favored? Which of these essential Below is a Maturity Model for incrementally
qualities is your organization lacking? improving an organization's enterprise
management.
The Current State Analysis is primarily focused on
understanding the status of a list of relevant 2. Developing the Level 3 Vision
disciplines that comprise the practice of PPM: This process should resemble intelligent
a. Project Management Tools design. Now that you’ve researched the
b. Quality Assurance climate, know what resources are available,
c. Cost Management and are familiar with what types of
d. Scope Management organization are the fittest for the
e. Resource Capacity (Project / environment, you can move forward with an
Enterprise) end state in mind.
f. Schedule Management
g. Communications Management To continue with the biology analogy, this is
h. Risk & Issue Management where you decide whether you are best suited
i. Knowledge Management to have fur or not—or if conditions are so
j. Project / Portfolio Governance volatile that only those who use clothing will be
k. Professional Development able to keep up with the climate. What diet
l. Methodology Management ought you employ? Do you need to acquire

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Analysis/Vision/Roadmaps & Conclusion and Additional Resources

largesse to become king of your domain, or is it c. Develop a “mini portfolio” initiatives, i.e.
more sustainable to be small and dependent on a the Roadmap. This describes the series
smaller access to resources? of changes that will be necessary to
deliver an optimized Level 2
The necessary traits for the organization are methodology.
determined through collaboration with PPM
experts combined with the organization-specific 3. Defining the Roadmap for
context, often represented by the portfolio
Optimal Future State for PPM
management team of the organization
Once you know where you are and where you
a. Review the current start of maturity,
would like to be, you need to decide how you
b. Define a feasible Level 3 Vision, an
will get there: you need to develop a plan for
organization should have a plan for
change.
change to get to each level of the maturity
a. Determine the initiatives that
process. If the current state is Level 1,
will be necessary to deliver the
then the future state should not be a
Project-Project Vision,
fully-adopted, highly rigorous resource
b. Define a “project charter” for
management capability. The below
each initiative,
graphics demonstrate a more attainable
c. Prioritize and Sequence the
approach to Organizational Change
initiative,
Management.
d. Provide governance oversight
of the “mini portfolio” to ensure
the Vision is delivered.

The final deliverable will be the Roadmap. This

plan for change then needs to be Implemented
and fully Adopted in the organization. This is a
topic for its own paper covering Project
Assistants’ Vision-Implement-Adopt (VIA)
Methodology for delivering the Project-Project.

Conclusion and Additional

Resources

Delivering the Deliverables

Each of the project and portfolio management
disciplines—e.g. resource management, and
training—makeup the deliverable for each
solution for the common obstacles of planning
and executing initiatives that get your

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Conclusion

organization to its mission. This is why so much

literature goes toward explaining and so much
consulting goes toward helping organizations with
each of these aspects of an organizations'
management of initiatives.

Questions? Contact Us.

(800) 642-9259
info@projectassistants.com

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Delivering the Future into the Present | Additional Resources

Additional Resources

Project Assistants' own library of content contains a wealth of information on each one of the
deliverables for successful delivering initiatives:

• Project Portfolio Management:

• PPM Planning Webinar
• PPM Execution Webinar
• PPM Blog Series:
• How to Get Your PPM Dashboard to Provide Valuable Business
Intelligence
• Improving PPM: The Perfect New Year’s Resolution
• Enterprise Project Management Office
• EPMO Webinar
• Enterprise Resource Management
• Resource Management Webinar
• Resource Management Blog Series:
• Resource Management Is the Keystone of Project Management and
Portfolio Management
• Getting Beyond the Gantt Chart
• An Approach to Optimal Resource Management
• Staffing
• Acquiring Project Leadership Talent Webinar
• Project Staffing Blog Series:
• A Project Manager Isn’t a Gallon of Milk
• Getting Beyond PMPs and Staffing Excellent Project Leaders
• Project Staffing Logistics
• Training
• Leadership Webinar
• Leadership White Paper
• Training Course Listing

18
Delivering the Future into the Present | Additional Resources

Additional Resources

• Technology
• Which Project Management Software Is Best for You
• Microsoft Project Online Webinar
• Revealing the Secrets of Project’s Scheduling Engine Webinar
• Leveraging the Value of Project Server Webinar
• Microsoft Project Training Guide
• Navigating Information in Microsoft Project Video Series
• Variance Analysis in Microsoft Project Video Series
• Microsoft Project Blog Series
• Governance
• Monitoring and Guiding Projects Webinar
• Achieving Organizational Harmony Webinar
• Process
• Project Execution Best Practices Webinar
• Agile Webinar
• Methodology Assembly and Distribution Tool
• Professional Services Best Practices Webinar
• Advice from 25 Top Project Managers (with Gus Cicala as contributing
author)
• Risk Management Blog

For any additional content, including PDF copies of any of our webinars, contact us via the Contact Form
at ProjectAssistants.com

19
Delivering the Future into the Present | Bibliography

Bibliography

Nguyen, Ph.D. Steve. "Successful Strategic Execution Is Hard." Workplace Psychology, 30

June 2013. Web. 09 Aug. 2016.

Bryant, Adam. "The Challenge of Creating a Unified Organizational Strategy." The New
York Times, 11 July 2013. Web. 09 July 2016.

Oracle, and FSN. "The Challenge of Strategic Alignment: The Role of Scorecards and
Dashboards in Strategy Execution." Oracle, 2008. Web. 23 June 2016

Bennett, Henry. "10 Typical Project Management Challenges Faced By Businesses."

KeyedIn Projects, 05 Feb. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Sharma, Rupen. "Crazy Project Management Problems in the Project Execution Phase."
Brighthub Project Management, 20 May 2011. Web. 03 Feb. 2016.

1. http://workplacepsychology.net/2011/02/18/successful-strategic-execution-is-hard/

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/business/the-challenge-of-creating-a-unified-organiz
ational-strategy.html?_r=0

3. http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-intelligence/064027.pdf

4. http://www.keyedin.com/keyedinprojects/article/10-typical-project-management-challeng
es-faced-by-businesses

5. http://www.brighthubpm.com/monitoring-projects/96387-crazy-project-management-pro