strategic project management and strategic behaviour

Strategic project management and strategic behaviour

Tony Grundy

Cran®eld School of Management, Cran®eld, Bedford MK44 0AL, UK

Abstract

Strategic projects are crucial to the implementation of strategies. Besides the analytical di�culties of managing strategicprojects these are perhaps overshadowed by behavioural di�culties. Research into the strategic behaviour at BT has identi®edseveral techniques for managing the behavioural issues facing strategic projects more e�ectively. These techniques include: cause

of behaviour analysis, personal and strategic agenda analysis, behavioural scenarios and di�culty, energy and frustration overtime curves. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In ``Strategy Implementation and ProjectManagement'' [1] I argued that there were close a�-nities between strategy implementation and projectmanagement. In that article, I imported a number oftools from strategic management, value managementand from organizational change to enrich project man-agement techniques.

These included:

. The ®ve forms of strategyÐand the strategy mix

. The notion of a set of strategic projects (the `stra-tegic project set')

. `Fishbone' or root cause analysis

. How±How analysis

. From±To analysis

. Force ®eld analysis

. Stakeholder analysis

. Attractiveness±implementation di�culty

. Assumption analysis/uncertainty

. Importance±urgency analysis

These techniques deal primarily with the more ana-lytical aspects of strategy implementation. Recentresearch (in collaboration with Robin Wensley atWarwick Business School) has led me to the con-clusion that equally important are the behaviouralaspects of strategy implementation. Practising man-

agers will easily recognise that the conduct of strategyitself is a battleground, given the considerable turbu-lence which surrounds both external and internal stra-tegic moves. Strategic projects, however wellintentioned, become easily bu�eted by strategies whichare highly emergent and unpredictable. The more di�-cult of the in¯uences are frequently behavioural innature. There appears to be great merit in incorporat-ing techniques for surfacing behavioural issues in pro-ject management, especially for the more strategicprojects.

But ®rst we need to de®ne `strategic behaviour'.This is de®ned as:

``The cognitive, emotional and territorial interplayof managers within (or between) groups when theagenda relates to strategic issues.'' [2]

Our de®nition of strategic behaviour stresses theextent to which cognitive, emotional and territorialperspectives and agendas of managers are interwoven.We are thus more able to understand those aspects ofstrategy implementation which are perhaps less easilydiscussible by managers. This di�culty could be dueeither to the fact that they involve power (whethermanifested through o�ensive or defensive behaviour,or through alliances) or because of emotional sensi-tivities.

International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103

0263-7863/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

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Two examples of strategic behaviour include:

. A ®nancial services company is trying to reduce itsbusiness complexity from ®fteen to ®ve strategicbusiness units. One of the directors raises semi-spur-ious reasons for retaining one business unit eventhough the balance of evidence is clearly againstremaining in it. The debate gets messier and messier,with less and less agreement and more and morefrustration. The director coils his arms and legs andslumps into defensive non-verbal behaviour. He hasnot, and will not reveal his underlying personalagenda which is to save the embarrassment of goingback to the managers who have put their very trustin him, to defend their case, and their jobs.

. A retail company is undertaking scenario develop-ment. One manager invited because of his technicalknowledge becomes more and more grumpy. He ismoody because the subject matter is too broad tohelp him on his own very speci®c functional issues.The rest of the team confront him with the problem,and one says: ``If you really don't see this as addingvalue to you personally, feel free to leave''. He did,and the team then began to make progress again.

The two examples above illustrate the profounde�ect of behaviour on the evaluation of strategy. Onemight indeed characterise the ®rst example of one of``Managers Behaving Badly'', except that would be toonormative. Certainly the word `dysfunctional' seemsapplicable to the ®rst example and partially also to thesecond example.

Whilst strategy formulation is clearly of someemotional and territorial sensitivity, this is likely to begreatly magni®ed during strategy implementation. Forduring strategic action, strategy creates turbulence inthe everyday fabric of the organisation. Frequently themain vehicle for that strategic action is the StrategicProject, and it is precisely here that much behaviouralturbulence (or `BT') is felt.

Coincidentally, our research site was BritishTelecom (BT). The study focused on the strategicbehaviour of a senior team within BT whose remit wasto understand the implications (market and technologi-cal) of major changes in BT's external and internal en-vironment. This key department was charged withde®ning strategic projects which would then form acentral plank of BT's technological migration. As theseprojects had a multi-business impact they were fre-quently fraught with complexityÐnot merely at a ter-ritorial level but also organisationally.

The study examined the team's patterns of strategicbehaviour whilst discussing these strategic projectsover a period of several months. This was part of anaction research process, the main point of which wasto see if managers could harness their strategic beha-

viour more e�ectively than before. The study producedsome most interesting and positive behavioural shiftssuggesting that there is at least some potential else-where for increasing the degree of harmony of strategicbehaviour. This shift may or may not directly result inmeasurably improved team performance (as other vari-ables are likely to intrude). However, at least thisstudy gives us a ®rst stage in exploring how strategicbehaviour might ultimately impact on individual andbusiness performance.

Indeed, the BT team found that a number of tools(contained in this paper) were extremely useful forhelping them cope with their own behavioural issues,as they set about crystallising these strategic projects.

This paper is split into three main parts:

. A quick overview of past literature on strategicbehaviour (drawing out implications for strategicprojects)

. Techniques for understanding strategic behaviour

. Illustrations from the BT research

. Lessons and conclusion.

2. A quick overview of past literature on strategicbehaviour

Prior to this research there have been relatively few®eld studies explicitly focusing on strategic behaviour.For example, Johnson [3] says:

``It is perhaps surprising that . . .there are so few sys-temic (systematic) studies of the way in which the in-teraction of individuals contributes to strategicdecision-making.''

As mentioned in my previous paper, [1] it is widelyaccepted that managers tend to make strategic de-cisions in an incremental fashion, often making theend result look somewhat disjointed, with limitedlogic. [4] Strategic projects su�er from the same di�-culty, making it arduous to manage interdependenciesor to establish coherent programmes to steer im-plementation over time.

Management decision-making has been characterisedas having `bounded rationality' [4] or focuses on `mud-dling through'. [5] In its extreme form, `decisions' can-not easily be detected at all. [6] Even when they aremade, they are often subject to a half-hearted or `weakimplementation'. [7]

Although organisational learning might hopefullycome to the rescue, [8] sadly this is very likely tobecome bogged down in defensive routines, [9] es-pecially where strategic projects threaten existing terri-torial barriers and existing organisational mind-sets.

T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±10394

The consequence of this is that a `rational' approachto strategy implementation, along the lines of my pre-vious paper [1] is abandoned in favour of muddlingthrough. [10] Unfortunately, the muddling through canresult in profound strategic errors andmisjudgements [10] due to `bias' or `gross omissions'(for instance, in considering alternatives).

In e�ect, conventional project management thusfocuses on a very small part of the total `strategic pro-ject iceberg' (see Fig. 1), particularly its:

. rational tasks

. resources

. timescales.

Although strategic project management tries toaddress the ®t of the project with both external and in-ternal strategic breakthroughs, and strategic vision (theapex of the iceberg) it still does not address the deepermore behavioural issues (see Fig. 2).

3. Techniques for understanding strategic behaviour

Our techniques for understanding the strategic beha-viour associated with strategic projects break intothree levels of behavioural diagnosis, agenda analysisand dynamic analysis (Fig. 3). In each case we critiquethe potential problems and di�culties which mightarise when implementing themÐtogether with theirpossible solution.These techniques include:

3.0.1. Behavioural diagnosis

. Cause of behaviour (`COBRA') analysis

. Piranha analysisÐfor behavioural problems

. Importance±in¯uence analysis.

3.0.2. Agenda analysis

. Personal and strategic agenda (`PASTA' factoranalysis)Ðand sub-personalities.

Fig. 1. The surface strategic project iceberg.

Fig. 2. The underlying strategic project iceberg.

T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103 95

3.0.3. Dynamic analysis

. Behavioural scenarios and `wishbone' analysis

. Di�culty over time, energy over time and frustra-tion over time curves.

3.1. Cause of behaviour (`COBRA') analysis

Cause of behaviour (`COBRA') analysis applies rootcause or ®shbone analysis [1] to behavioural issues.Although initially this may not seem like a very majorinnovation, in practice this can be an extremely power-ful technique for getting hold of the less tangible fac-tors which may be at work in frustrating a strategicproject (see Fig. 4).

COBRA analysis (so named because of the slipperi-ness of behavioural drivers) can help to understand:

. why a project team as a whole is behaving in anapparently dysfunctional way, or

. the dysfunctional behaviour of a particular individ-ual either within or outside the project team.

Once the COBRA analysis has been done, it is thenpossible to prioritise which area to intervene with, forexample by prioritising those behavioural driverswhich are:

. attractive to deal with

. not too di�cult to deal with.

perhaps using a more formal attractiveness±implemen-tation di�culty analysis [1] (Fig. 5).

Potential drawbacks of COBRA analysis mightinclude:

. Managers attribute the causes of behavioural pro-blem to merely further symptoms rather than totheir ultimate root causes.

. Crucially important root causes are missed eitherbecause these causes are taken-for-granted, hiddenor mis-de®ned.

. Having done the analysis no-one is prepared to useit because of its sensitivity, and due to the lack ofknowledge and interpersonal skill in raising sensitiveissues of this kind.

Facilitation or self-challenge of the process is herevery helpful: for example, one can always ask the ques-tion: ``Are these root causes both a necessary and su�-cient condition of creating this problem?''

3.2. Piranha analysisÐfor behavioural problems

A particular strategic project might be rife withbehavioural problems. Here it is possible to apply are®nement of the Fishbone technique by showing anumber of small problems on the same sheet (Fig. 6).This is called `Piranha' analysis because each problemon its own, whilst being non-life-threatening to theproject nevertheless eats in a major way into its likelysuccess. (A shoal of piranhaÐactually a very small®shÐis apparently su�cient to strip a human beingdown to a skeleton in next to no time.)

A potential concern here might be that we have mis-de®ned the various sub-problems that revolve aroundthe main symptom. To genuinely get their armsaround and underneath the total problem, managersneed to be very careful in ensuring that there are nomajor dimensions of the problem missing. Forexample, one major insurance company faced a hugeresource constraint in dealing with its Year 2000 ITproblem. The piranha analysis highlighted not justone, but several sub-problems. One was that there wasa severe shortage of IT skills in the marketplace. But asecond problem was the cumbersome way in which ITprojects were managed anyway in the organisationÐshowing itself as an `unable to prioritise e�ectively'symptom. A third dimension was added by the fact

Fig. 3. Analysing strategic behaviour.


that the company was the last place at which good ITsta� would choose to work. Each one of these symp-toms requires its own, very separate, ®shbone.

3.3. Importance±in¯uence analysis

Whilst COBRA and Piranha analysis are essentiallyinitial diagnostic tools, Importance±in¯uence analysishelps us to prioritise behavioural interventions. Fig. 7helps us to identify which behavioural issues it is mostbene®cial to address (especially in the north-east quad-rant). But also Fig. 7 may help to challenge thinkingabout behavioural issues in the south-eastÐhow canthe team get more in¯uence over these?

Di�culties which might arise with the importance±in¯uence grid include, for example, not having clarityabout what is most important versus least importantcriteria. Or, managers might not be clear what they

actually mean by `in¯uence'. Ideally managers shouldexpose their reasons for judging `low' versus`high' in-¯uence.

3.4. Personal and strategic agendas

Coupled with the need to in¯uence behaviours (andunderlying agendas) we may need to dig deeper intothose agendas for speci®c individuals. My earlierpaper [1] dealt with the more visible positions of keystakeholders. Personal and strategic agenda analysisallows us to go much deeper.

Called the `PASTA' factor (because of our ®ndingÐat BT that both personal and strategic agendas areoften inextricably intertwinedÐ-almost like spaghetti)this analysis can yield some major insights. Fig. 7shows a force ®eld analysis of one individual's per-sonal and strategic agenda. The `enabling' forces are

Fig. 4. Cause of behaviour (COBRA) analysis.

Fig. 5. Attractiveness/implementation di�culty ("AID") analysis.


now called the àttractors' (what turns that stakeholderon) whilst the constraining forces are called the `repel-lers' (or what turns that stakeholder o�).

In order to get a good handle on someone's`PASTA' factors, it is advisable to simulate the òut-of-body experience' (OBE) which entails one imagin-ingÐand identifying withÐthe feelings, thoughts,habits and everyday concerns (and history) of that keystakeholder. PASTA factor analysis is an essential pre-lude to creating behavioural scenarios for your stra-tegic project.

One resistance to using PASTA factor analysis islikely to be the discomfort which managers experiencewhen re¯ecting on their own agendas. Here it is help-

ful for another manager (or managers) to tentativelysuggest or hypothesise that someone `might have cer-tain X, Y and Z agendas'. The awkwardness of doingthis is signi®cantly alleviated if the enquiring man-ager(s) explicitly say that they are having the equival-ent of an òut-of-body experience'. This is usuallytaken in a humorous vein, thus enabling the strategicintervention to become ¯uid again.

Before we leave the topic of PASTA factors, it isalso useful to see that an individual may not alwayshave a coherent set of agendas. The very same individ-ual may pursue one strategy one day, another strategyon another day (sometimes called `stratophrenia'). [11]A useful way of getting one's mind around this is touse the notion of `sub-personalities'. For example, aparticular stakeholder might have several mini person-alities:

. A personality (A) that wants to be seen as being`very clever'Ðactually, the cleverest in the team.

. A personality (B) which seeks to protect at all costwhat has worked in the past, especially where theperson has put their own stamp of approval on it.

. A personality (C) (contrary to A and B) which isactually quite helpful and supportive of change.

In doing the PASTA factor analysis you would needhere to weigh up the likelihood of a particular sub-per-sonality coming to the fore in this situation.

3.5. Behavioural scenarios and `wishbone' analysis

Behavioural scenarios involve semi-structured story-telling about how the future of the strategic project

Fig. 6. Piranha analysis.

Fig. 7. Importance±in¯uence analysis.


may develop. A ®rst technique [1] is to plot some keyassumptions about the behavioural in¯uences in theproject. Fig. 9 illustrates these, also identifying wherecertain behavioural assumptions which might haveseemed to have been either of less importance or lesseruncertainty can quickly move into the south-east ofthe uncertainty gridÐits `danger zone'.

Where one or more assumptions occur in thisdanger zone, it is at that point that a particular beha-vioural scenario can be drawn out. One scenario isthat the project team leader resigns and is replaced byanother team leader who then immediately conductsan entire review of the strategic project with the resultbeing a radical change in its direction.

Behavioural scenarios can be re®ned by story-telling.For example, one can pick out `transitional beha-vioural events' that will lead us from the current stateof the strategic project to one which is quite di�erent.Or, one might start o� with a particular future andthen work backwards to de®ne the kind of behaviouralstory-line which might lead up to that scenario (as inthe 1990s ®lm ``Back to the Future'').

A potential problem with using behavioural scen-arios is that it is very possible that the scenario turnsout to be completely o�-beam. The very nature ofscenarios makes the possibility of mis-judging thefuture a signi®cant risk. However the alternativesÐeither of not looking into the behavioural future orextrapolating from the behavioural pastÐdo not seemviable. If there is real doubt that one particular scen-ario fails to tease-out the main behavioural turningpoints, then develop a second or even a third one(Fig. 9).

Or one might use the metaphor model of the uncer-tainty tunnel [12] to understand:

. The behavioural antecedents of the projects.

. The factors which might amplify or dampen beha-vioural change a�ecting the project.

. The ®rst, second or third order behavioural conse-quence of an event within or outside the strategicproject.

Finally, you might identify one ideal behaviouralstate of the project (or its behavioural vision) and thentry to map out all the behavioural factors which wouldneed to be aligned in order to deliver that behaviouraloutcome. This can be drawn as a `®shbone'-like pic-ture, except this time starting from the left-hand sideof the page and working forward into the future.Because the goal of this picture is not to diagnose aproblem but to create an opportunity, and because itdeals with the future rather than the past, we call thistechnique behavioural wishbone analysis (Fig. 10) [9].

Wishbone analysis is a powerful way of making surethat not only the necessary, but also the su�cient con-ditions are created to achieve a behavioural outcome.

With wishbone analysis the main area to guardagainst is that however imaginative managers are theymay fail to capture the one or two factors which stillneed to be aligned but currently are not. Wishboneanalysis is most e�ective when accompanied by scen-ario story-telling. This ensures that all the thingswhich need to go right do go right.

3.6. Behavioural di�culty, energy and frustration overtime curves

So far (with the exception of behavioural scenarios)we have looked primarily at the deeper drivers of stra-tegic behaviour associated with strategic projectsrather than with the dynamics of those behaviours.The following curves were piloted by companiesincluding Amersham International and Nokia.Particularly at Nokia these curves have proved es-pecially helpful in encouraging managers to anticipatefuture behavioural di�culty.

Fig. 8. Personal and strategic agendas (PASTA factors).


Fig. 11 plots behavioural di�culty and energy over

time for a typical strategic project. Note that as thebehavioural di�culty goes up, the energy of the teamfrequently does down. This reduction in energy is duepartly to the decline in energy as the team gets less

enthusiastic generally, and also as a direct response tocumulative behavioural di�culty. (Clearly, if our ear-lier diagnostic tools are not used, and also the tools

from our earlier paper [1] are neglected, this is highlylikely to occur.)

Fig. 11 helps us to explain why many strategic pro-jects become bogged down, especially three to sixmonths after inception.

Finally, Fig. 12 draws together the two strands ofenergy over time and frustration over time curves.Again, as frustration mounts, this again saps the

energy of the team unless it can somehow re-energiseitself or reduce its frustrations (or both).

Interestingly, managers experimenting (especially atNokia) with drawing these curves found it quite a cog-

nitive revelation to uncover these patterns. This re-

inforces the impression that despite being extolled to

do the contrary, managers involved in managing stra-

tegic projects manage from the `now' rather than

`backwards from the future'.

Clearly, these curves can help to ¯esh out the beha-

vioural scenarios which are covered in the earlier sec-

tion.

Finally, if we want to extend this dynamic thinking

from the `D', `E', `F' (di�culty, energy and frustration

over time curves) to A to F we can also draw curves

for:

. AÐactivity (i.e. its level) over time

. BÐbelief (in project success) over time

. CÐconfusion (i.e. its level) over time.

The major concern with applying the techniques of

plotting di�culty, energy and frustration over time is

likely to reside in potential subjectivity. The way to

Fig. 9. Uncertainty and importance mapping.

Fig. 10. Behavioural wishbone analysis. Fig. 11. Di�culty and energy over time curves.


resolve this (besides getting the separate and/or inde-pendent input from di�erent managers) is to ask prob-ing questions like: ``Why do you think it will be sodi�cult at time T?'' This in turn might invite a ®sh-bone analysis.

4. Illustrations from the BT research

The action research process in the BT team involveda number of

stages:

1. Initial interviews with the team.2. Observation at an initial strategic workshop where

the managers interacted in their usual style.3. Debrief interviews with managers, re¯ecting on

their behaviourÐand what was considered func-tional versus dysfunctional by them (and why).

4. Feedback by the researcher to the team on what itskey behavioural patterns seemed to be (with discus-sion).

5. Facilitation by the researcher of a further strategicworkshop sessionÐwould/could the team shift itsbehaviour?

6. Observation of a ®nal strategic workshop sessionwhere managers had the chance to try out di�erentbehavioural patterns to those which were manifestin their previous state.

7. Feedback of the overall ®ndings (and discussion).

The overall process took place over a four-monthperiodÐin order to allow any shifts in behaviour tooccur and to allow data to be digested.

The main ®ndings of the research [2] were as fol-lows:

First, the BT managers themselves were frequentlyfrustrated at the slow progress of key strategic issuesand projects. Their discussions were often too open-ended, inconclusive and di�use to produce morefocused outputs. Their interactions were swayed by anumber of behavioural factors which appeared to han-dicap their e�ectiveness. These ®ndings were generatedby the phases 1) to 3) of the research.

The cause-of-behaviour analysis (COBRA) whichwas a central part of the feedback to managers isshown in Fig. 14. This (tailored) ®shbone analysisproved to be a very powerful intervention in the man-agement team (research phase 4), as there was appar-ently unanimous agreement `to see if we can trysomething better'.

In the facilitated session (phase 5) the team againran into di�culties as old behaviours (not surprisingly)persisted. A most interesting ®nding was the tendencyof key members of the team to focus on more micro-scopic issues (and often going o� at a tangent) rather

than holding attention at a more `strategic level'.Subsequent feedback showing the level and dynamicsof discussion (see Fig. 13) helped the team to under-stand the dysfunctional e�ects of excessive `pickingapart' behaviour. Fig. 13 shows the discussion goingthrough high, medium or low levels of generality, ascategorised by the researcher. Although this was not,and could not be, coded with precision, it did provehelpful in discerning who in the team had the greatesttendency to `rabbit hole' the discussions.

The team found it especially helpful to refer toFig. 13 which contrasted strategic thinking from `rab-bit-hole thinking'. As discussion proceeded the teammembers were able to re¯ect ``are we actually in thehelicopter in our thinking, or have we gone down arabbit hole?''

Another important ®nding came out of Phases 5)and 6). When the team had a narrower focus of atten-tion and also when it was more able to share the cog-nitive maps and assumptions of key individuals, thereseemed to be far greater momentum and harmony inits behaviours. So the more cognitive clarity existswithin a team, ceteris paribus, the less behavioural tur-bulence is likely to exist.

Fig. 12. Energy and frustration over time curves.


Another interesting ®nding was that certain be-havioural drivers had the tendency to govern the cog-nitive subject matter of the managers. The maindrivers of this were the personal agendas of individuals.These agendas contained a mix of emotional, territor-ial and cognitive elements which were all highly inter-mingled. So, for example, one manager held certainviews about the attractiveness of a particular technol-ogy with BT's strategy. His cognitive assumptionswere imbued with considerable feeling. But at the sametime those views represented a particular ìdeas terri-tory' which he had staked out as being `right andappropriate for BT'.

This notion of ìdeas territory' is likely to be veryhelpful elsewhere, especially when a particular strategicproject is complex and where a particular idea of `howit will work or not work' can come to dominate thewider project team's thinking. And to challenge thedominant ideas territory is to make as much of a pol-itical challenge as it is to challenge the speci®c in¯u-ence and power of an individual.

Finally, when managers were able to self-regulatetheir own behaviour and cognitive interplay, somevery notable shifts in behaviours occurred. Oneparticularly interesting change occurred when usingthe importance-in¯uence grid. As the BT managersbegan to discuss what issues they had high versus lowin¯uence over, they became remarkably calmer andmore ¯uid. Instead of operating at a predominantlylow and microscopic level of debate they began toglide e�ortlessly up and down through the levels. Intheir own judgement, they delivered a good deal more(and in a shorter period of time) than in their previoussessions.

To summarise, then, we found that:

. Cause of behaviour analysis (COBRA) was a power-ful and e�ective way of managers' re¯ecting on pastbehaviour, feeding into real behavioural shift.

. The strategic thinking/helicopter picture helped pro-vide some useful visual prompts to focus on certainbehaviours more and on other behaviours less.

. Narrowing the focus of strategic attention helped togain more cognitive clarity which, in turn, calmedmuch of the behavioural turbulence. This was alsofacilitated by the use of the importance-in¯uencegrid which helped to provide a stabilising, cognitivefocus.

. Re¯ection on personal agendas helped the team tochallenge the dominant ìdeas territory' which mighthave hindered more innovative thinking.

The team felt generally that the action research hadbeen a very fruitful process, both for re¯ecting on andshifting their behaviours, and also for providing moreshared structure in their cognitive debate. This led to

them incorporating several of the techniques intofuture team sessions.

5. Lessons and conclusion

Strategic projects have become a vital way of brid-ging strategic and operational management, but theirvery success is impeded by a lack of both analyticaland behavioural techniques. Whilst the analytical tech-niques have already been addressed, [11] arguably it isequally important (and probably more di�cult) tomanage the behavioural drivers impacting on strategicprojects. Hopefully managers of strategic projectseverywhere can now experiment successfully with thosepractical techniques for channelling strategic behaviourfor their projects.

From research at BT (and related studies) a numberof behavioural techniques now exist which providemanagers with some very practical and in-depth waysof managing the strategic behaviour associated withstrategic projects. A focus on strategic behaviour needschampioning in the organisation as it represents amajor shift in how things are done. This would requirenot merely input from internal human resources facili-tators or from outside but also leadership executive orequivalent. For it is up to him/her ultimately if there isto be a new openness and incisiveness in the inter-action within senior teams.

References

[1] Grundy AN. Strategy implementation and project management.

International Journal of Project Management 1998;16(1):43±50.

[2] Grundy AN. Harnessing strategic behaviour. Financial Times,

1998.

[3] Johnson GJ. Strategic change and the management process.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

[4] Quinn JB. Strategies for changeÐlogical incrementalism.

Illinois: Richard D. Urwin, 1980.

[5] Cyert RM, March JH. A behavioural theory of the ®rm.

Englewood Clift, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963.

[6] Mintzberg H. Patterns in strategy formation. Management

Science 1978, 934±48.

[7] Hickson DH, Butler RJ et al. Top decisions: strategic decision-

making in organisations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

[8] Senge P. The ®fth discipline: the art and practise of the learning

organisation. Doubleday, 1990.

[9] Argyris C. Strategy, change and defensive routines. Pitman,

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[10] Janis IL. Crucial decisions. New York: Free Press, Macmillan,

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[11] Grundy AN. Breakthrough Strategies for Growth. Pitman,

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[12] Grundy AN. Exploring strategic ®nancial management.

Englewood Cli�s, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.


Dr Tony Grundy is a Senior Lecturer

in Strategic Management at Cran®eld

School of Management, and Director,

Cambridge Corporate Development.

He has worked with BP, ICI and

KPMG, and is author of six books

on strategy, ®nance and change

management, including Breakthrough

Strategies for Growth (Pitman, 1995),

Exploring Strategic Financial Manage-

ment (1998) (Prentice Hall) and

Harnessing Strategic Behaviour (1998)

(FT Publishing).


strategic project management and strategic behaviour

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