Exploring PROJECTIFY with Mykel Dixon – The Project Framework

What is an effective strategic project – one that will maximise the business’s opportunity to create the future that it aspires to? How to do you create and execute projects so that strategic activity is driving the business forward? How do you, as a business leader, use a project framework to move from managing your people’s resistance to change to enabling your people to adapt the organisation to the change that is all around them?

In the fourth episode of my interview with Mykel Dixon, we dive into these questions and get more specific about how to effectively projectify your strategy-making. We discuss how to create projects that move the organisation from the ineffective world of major transformational change to an environment where your strategic activities drive opportunity – market opportunities for the business and opportunity for the people in the business.

Myke and I talk about how the right types of projects create shared purpose where your people are not just cogs in the machine – asked to contribute to the business’s strategic activities in indiscriminate, uncertain ways – but are given clear line of sight to how their work contributes to the business’s strategic goals. By creating a sense of individual purpose and connecting it to the organisation’s strategic priorities you give these projects meaning. By supporting and enabling your project teams in an intentional way, you maximise the opportunity to deliver those projects successfully – to make strategic progress. As a result, your people are given a chance to see how their work contributes meaningfully to the strategic direction of the business and are motivated to continue making strategic progress.

So, by putting in place the right sort of project framework, you ensure that strategy isn’t just something you have. It’s something that you do as a part of your operational fabric and manifests itself as part of your organisational identity.

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable holiday break and find that the final few episodes of this interview series will provide you with some ‘food for thought’ as you shape your business or team for success in 2019.

As always, I also hope you’ll share the thoughts and experiences that come from your strategy-making activities – your challenges, your successes and what you’ve learned in shaping your business for the future.