Fourth essential project alignment. Now that we've got the solid foundation underneath all of the projects, let's determine how all of the projects align with the overall direction and priorities of the organization is all Swahili proverb is been true for as long as it's been around. And if you've worked in an organization where all the projects are headed in the same direction, you know how exciting that is, you also know how frustrating it gets when they're not. So let me give you a tool if you will, or, and here's an example around using a tool that would spell out the alignment between all of the projects and the strategy. And in this case, it'll be an example from the insurance business. The overall direction was refocusing the enterprise.

They had four strategic priorities, improving operational efficiency, improve the balance sheet. Let's get the core products into the key markets and let's manage our capital base. more effectively, the green oval is the vision or the direction. And the blue boxes are the priorities, the strategic priorities. Underneath that are all the changes are all of the projects. And you can see some of these projects span two or three different priorities, because they're large in their scope.

Some of them are very poorly aligned under one particular strategic priority. This example was from the executive view. So these projects are big, massive projects. You can see, for example, the business unit restructuring. At an enterprise level that looks like one big project to all of the business units and the people who are driving that project. It probably had 15 major projects inside that one.

So in this example, we're looking at a high level view. You can look at the view From a much more local area for your particular division or your particular department, it doesn't matter. If you look closely on this graphic, you will see some initials on not only the vision and the priorities, but also for all the projects, those initials were actually initials of people in the organization, who were seen as and were acting as owners for the vision. Of course, Artie was the president of the organization, tr, j. s, LD ns, those were the senior leaders, the senior executives, the vice presidents in that example, who really were taking ownership for each one of those particular strategic priorities. And then for all of the projects, not only did we have the initials of the project leader, but we also had some key dates. And this can be helpful to position what's happening when, if we wanted to use this for example, as a communication tool.

Now it's your turn. Find this worksheet, what I'd like you to do is think about the organizational direction and priorities. So when you think about the organization, it could be your division, it could be your department, or it could be the entire organization. You get to pick what level you want to think out here. What is the overall direction? What are the strategic priorities, and let's put the projects, all the projects that you know are going on, under the specific priorities under which you think they align.

If you know the leaders in any key dates, by all means, put them in there as well. And if you have some projects that are going on that don't fit with those particular strategic priorities, list them to the side somewhere, because that's a whole other issue that will need to be dealt with. Why are we spending time money and effort on projects that don't align with our priorities and vision? Well, the answer is you shouldn't be so it just needs to be acknowledged, and then someone with enough heft or clout needs to take that project off people's laps. So that's a worksheets gonna take a few minutes. So push, pause and get to work.

You can do this on a flip chart sheet if you like where you can use that worksheet. Now that you've got that done, how did it come out? You know all of the projects that are going on, or do you need to go and find out some more? The big question here really is, how can we avoid organizational flights of fancy. One of the things that really sabotage us organizations and projects is, projects get launched at too low level for the wrong reasons. Somebody's got some money for a budget and they've got a pet project they want to do and they'll bring people on board with that and they'll pull them off of other projects to do this particular thing.

That's not helpful. This alignment issue is really all about discipline. So what can you do to ensure that all of the projects clearly align with your organizational priorities and direction in your organization right now? Find this action plan and make some notes to yourself.