Investments Not Projects
Business people think in terms of investments and delivering a return on an investment. Project staff think in terms of projects and delivering “to time, quality and budget.”
Investments start with an idea or business objective and don’t end until the investment has delivered a return through the operating business. Of course, sometimes, investments are also terminated early, if they are no longer going to deliver an acceptable return.
Projects start after an investment idea or business objective has been formulated into a specific deliverable and end when that deliverable has been delivered to the operating business.
So when we talk about linking an organisation’s project investments to its strategic objectives, we believe the correct form of thinking is Investment Not Project, even though investments are invariably delivered through the use of project structures, processes and methods.
