There is much talk in the PM space about the connections or lack of connections between business strategy and the day to day activities of projects.

There is a simple – a long active approach to this we use every day. Balanced Scorecard. It's straight forward:

• Build a Balanced Scorecard for the business, the program, or the project. This includes the Vision, Strategic Objectives, Performance Goals, Critical Success Factors, and the Key Performance Indicators
• Define what projects are needed to produce the Performance Goals
• Use the CSF's and KPI's to tease out the performance measures from the project

These performance measures are things like the Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance for the deliverables – the “done” of the project.

Here's a picture on how to put all this together – that is independent of any tool

The arrows can flow “up” or “down” the strategy chain. Doesn't really matter in the end. The picture needs to connect “why” we're doing something with “what” we're doing and how we can measure that what we're doing is actually supporting the strategy.

This is a great way to control the contents of a Project Portfolio. If the project can't trace it's reason to a strategy, then it is likely a support project – non discretionary work. Any IT strategy needs to reduce the non discretionary efforts to free funds for “value added work.”

Here is the original: Herding Cats