Dennis Comninos - International Project Management Training and Consulting

Simply put, Business Focused Project Management is the application of project management to projects linked to the organisation's strategies in order to effectively deliver those strategies in an effective manner - in effect, managing the organisation by projects.

Paul Dinsmore, project manager and author, in an article "Toward Corporate Project Management" (PM Network, March and June 1996), describes this philosophy as; "Managing Organisations by Projects is an organisational mindset. It is a way of thinking about business. It means the company is project-driven, that corporate goals are targeted and achieved by managing a web of simultaneous projects, including operational improvement and organisational transformation programs as well as traditional development projects". He goes further to say "From the MOBP view, organisations are "portfolios of projects."

Therefore, the aggregate result of an organisation's projects becomes the company's bottom line. Mission, visions, strategies, objectives, and goals are transformed into company-wide programs that translate corporate intentions into actions. These programs are, in turn broken into projects to be managed by corporate staff or professional project management personnel."

BFPM™ subscribes to this definition and implements it through the BFPM™ model and the ODPM™ project management process. Benefits and advantages experienced by organisations applying BFPM™ include the following:

• A more goal or objective-oriented organisation. This mindset permeates through the organisation from the strategic level, through the tactical level, to operations.
• A speeding up of and greater contribution to the implementation of the organisation's strategic objectives.
• A strengthening of the project environment by providing structures and processes to effectively conceive, execute, and validate projects.
• The dynamism of the organisation is facilitated through the provision of the means to adjust project strategies to changing scenarios through project selection and prioritisation.
• Allows all levels of management and the core project team to contribute to the achievement of the organisation's strategies.
• Allows for the measurement of both project performance and progress towards achieving strategic goals.