A strategic mindset is a foundation for building PQ, and it helps align the desired results while focusing on the big picture. The ability to train one’s mind and thoughts to help keep the focus on the big picture is a skill that helps create a strategic mindset. The great philosopher René Descartes once said, “I think therefore I am.”

Knowing that the thought process fuels our actions and decisions, it is clear that, the mind is a powerful tool and asset that needs to be utilized to achieve results and planned outcomes.

The thought process helps create a strategic mindset which, in turn, leads to strategic thinking. Just focusing on ‘the narrow’—what is within sight—limit one’s perspective. The Harvard Business Review states that “Strategic people create connections between ideas, plans, and people that others fail to see.” Strategic people are those who have developed a strategic mindset. Developing a strategic mindset influences how professionals and entrepreneurs think, helping them create an outlook that focuses on the bigger picture while weighing the risks, issues, internal and external factors that could positively or negatively impact goals.

In the Harvard Business Review, the author went further to talk about self-reflecting and assessing ideas before making decisions. Self-reflections start in the mind as a decision to pursue goals can either mean success or failure for you or your organization. The author state that “It is critically important to make time to reflect before making decisions. What is involved? Who is involved? What is at stake? What is the opportunity and what are the risks? What at first seems like an opportunity might reveal significant risks and what seemed risky at first might reveal a significant opportunity.”

Setting goals is great but also having the right goals that align with your vision with mechanisms to reflect and review these goals and that of your organization is critical to success.

With a strategic mindset, professionals and entrepreneurs can:

• first off, set the right goals that will bring the greatest impact;
• become solution-focused, not problem-focused;
• relentlessly prioritize ideas, goals, projects, et al;
• think more logically and ask more substantive far-reaching questions;
• become better listeners, able to listen more and open to the perspective of others;
• better interpret nuance, uncover patterns, and synthesize data; and
• willing to take on calculated risks, be nimble able to adapt when required.

In the pursuit of the attainment of personal or organizational goals, such intent must be managed and managed appropriately. With the different management styles that exist, i.e., authoritative, consultative, laissez-faire, and persuasive, to mention a few, these management styles would not matter if there is no structured systematic methodology to plan, execute, monitor, and control projects.

Project management provides various methodologies and approaches including waterfall, agile, and hybrid project management methods. The common denominator is that these project management methods are systematic processes—the “how-to” execute projects from conception to planning through to execution. Several people try to reinvent the wheel by exploring options to help achieve goals forgetting that project management has been tried and tested. We see leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs not realizing there is already a science—and art—of project management and all they need to do, is to adapt it to their specific projects or organizations.

The science of project management is the step-by-step process for managing projects (the roadmap). It considers the different aspects needed to be managed in a project from communications, quality, risks, cost, scope, schedule, stakeholder management, procurement, etc. Do you have a systematic process for managing your goals? You need to have one to take away the “flying off the seat of your pants or winging it as you go.”

Project management is not about doing the work, it is about managing the work that needs to get done. To understand what needs managing, you can break the project lifecycle down into phases such as conception, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing.

The art of project management is the utilization of the “science of project management” in tangent with soft skills to get results. For example, how can project stakeholders or team members be influenced to get things done? Also, how to communicate and manage relationships across diverse stakeholder groups, prioritize issues and resolve conflicts?

Depending on the goals to be achieved, you may have to project manage and, do the work—build, test and deploy. The benefit you get is that with project management skills, you can adapt and apply both the art and science to get the desired outcomes.

Agility is critical for success as it brings nimbleness to play. One’s ability to change, adapt, learn, relearn, and unlearn as goals progress from conception to execution could determine your success in achieving goals. As a professional or entrepreneur, you are leading and influencing actions hence, the ability to make decisions and communicate (those decisions) quickly to stakeholders and teams is essential to get results. Therefore, leader agility is needed.

Also, the ability to pivot and respond to market indicators, customer needs, and organizational strategic direction comes to play. To consistently be ahead of the competition in the pursuit of the attainment of goals, professionals and entrepreneurs need to be welcoming to change and create solutions fast enough that the clients can begin to see results quickly. This could include developing solutions in increments and incorporating feedback from clients and stakeholders for improvement as work progresses.

Have you ever thought of your level of Project IQ?

The level of project Intelligence (PQ) is what project IQ measures. No matter where you fall on the PQ spectrum, the good news is, that PQ is a skill that can be developed and improved upon.

As professionals and entrepreneurs, we all face competing demands from work and life, that could get overwhelming, impeding goal creation let alone goal achievement. I have been there just like several professionals and entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed and unsure of how to achieve goals consistently. I have great news, PQ gave me a way out and transformed my world and that of my clients. I am sure PQ can do the same for you.

Applying PQ helps take project management philosophies, and a strategic approach to goals and see it through to project execution. PQ ensures that the right projects are carried out from the onset, and that focus remains on the more important ideas.

Pareto’s principle states that roughly eighty percent (80%) of consequences come from twenty percent (20%) of causes for many outcomes. Having PQ helps build a strategic mindset and strategic thinking. It helps you as a professional or entrepreneur think differently, think strategically and rationally to recognize the twenty percent (20%) of work needed to create the most significant results, and prioritize accordingly. As your goals (projects) get crystallized, PQ helps:

• align goals (projects) with your strategy.
• methodologically qualify which goals (projects) add value.
• balance the capacity vs. capability on the project(s).
• focus on the overall delivery from idea to execution while tying back to benefit realization to ensure that the essence of the projects is achieved.

As a professional or entrepreneur, goal attainment is achievable; it starts with developing PQ. PQ will help create that strategic mindset, enable the utilization of appropriate project management methodologies, and enable nimbility.

Remember, successful professionals, entrepreneurs and business leaders are strategic project leaders with PQ.

My team and I help professionals and entrepreneurs become strategic project leaders. We help you find and optimize the right solution(s) to “execute right” to achieve those personal and business goals. We start small by rolling out low-stakes iterations that gradually expand as you get results and feedback, helping you leverage project intelligence to achieve the results and goals you crave.