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

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

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 strategic
projects these are perhaps overshadowed by behavioural diculties. Research into the strategic behaviour at BT has identi®ed
several 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 over
time curves. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction agers will easily recognise that the conduct of strategy

itself is a battleground, given the considerable turbu-
In ``Strategy Implementation and Project lence which surrounds both external and internal stra-
Management'' [1] I argued that there were close a- tegic moves. Strategic projects, however well
nities between strategy implementation and project intentioned, become easily bu€eted by strategies which
management. In that article, I imported a number of are highly emergent and unpredictable. The more di-
tools from strategic management, value management cult of the in¯uences are frequently behavioural in
and from organizational change to enrich project man- nature. There appears to be great merit in incorporat-
agement techniques. ing techniques for surfacing behavioural issues in pro-
These included: ject management, especially for the more strategic
projects.
. The ®ve forms of strategyÐand the strategy mix But ®rst we need to de®ne `strategic behaviour'.
. The notion of a set of strategic projects (the `stra- This is de®ned as:
tegic project set')
. `Fishbone' or root cause analysis ``The cognitive, emotional and territorial interplay
. How±How analysis of managers within (or between) groups when the
. From±To analysis agenda relates to strategic issues.'' [2]
. Force ®eld analysis
. Stakeholder analysis
. Attractiveness±implementation diculty Our de®nition of strategic behaviour stresses the
. Assumption analysis/uncertainty extent to which cognitive, emotional and territorial
. Importance±urgency analysis perspectives and agendas of managers are interwoven.
We are thus more able to understand those aspects of
These techniques deal primarily with the more ana- strategy implementation which are perhaps less easily
lytical aspects of strategy implementation. Recent discussible by managers. This diculty could be due
research (in collaboration with Robin Wensley at either to the fact that they involve power (whether
Warwick Business School) has led me to the con- manifested through o€ensive or defensive behaviour,
clusion that equally important are the behavioural or through alliances) or because of emotional sensi-
aspects of strategy implementation. Practising man- tivities.

0263-7863/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 3 - 7 8 6 3 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 7 6 - 3
94 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Two examples of strategic behaviour include:
. A ®nancial services company is trying to reduce its
business complexity from ®fteen to ®ve strategic
business units. One of the directors raises semi-spur-
ious reasons for retaining one business unit even
though the balance of evidence is clearly against
remaining in it. The debate gets messier and messier,
with less and less agreement and more and more
frustration. The director coils his arms and legs and
slumps into defensive non-verbal behaviour. He has
not, and will not reveal his underlying personal
agenda which is to save the embarrassment of going
back to the managers who have put their very trust
in him, to defend their case, and their jobs.
. A retail company is undertaking scenario develop-
ment. One manager invited because of his technical
knowledge becomes more and more grumpy. He is
moody because the subject matter is too broad to
help 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 adding
value to you personally, feel free to leave''. He did,
and the team then began to make progress again.
The two examples above illustrate the profound
e€ect of behaviour on the evaluation of strategy. One
might indeed characterise the ®rst example of one of
``Managers Behaving Badly'', except that would be too
normative. Certainly the word `dysfunctional' seems
applicable to the ®rst example and partially also to the
second example.
Whilst strategy formulation is clearly of some
emotional and territorial sensitivity, this is likely to be
greatly magni®ed during strategy implementation. For
during strategic action, strategy creates turbulence in
the everyday fabric of the organisation. Frequently the
main vehicle for that strategic action is the Strategic
Project, and it is precisely here that much behavioural
turbulence (or `BT') is felt.
Coincidentally, our research site was British
Telecom (BT). The study focused on the strategic
behaviour of a senior team within BT whose remit was
to understand the implications (market and technologi-
cal) of major changes in BT's external and internal en-
vironment. This key department was charged with
de®ning strategic projects which would then form a
central plank of BT's technological migration. As these
projects 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 strategic
behaviour whilst discussing these strategic projects
over a period of several months. This was part of an
action research process, the main point of which was
to see if managers could harness their strategic beha-
viour more e€ectively than before. The study produced
some most interesting and positive behavioural shifts
suggesting that there is at least some potential else-
where for increasing the degree of harmony of strategic
behaviour. This shift may or may not directly result in
measurably improved team performance (as other vari-
ables are likely to intrude). However, at least this
study gives us a ®rst stage in exploring how strategic
behaviour might ultimately impact on individual and
business performance.
Indeed, the BT team found that a number of tools
(contained in this paper) were extremely useful for
helping 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 strategic
behaviour (drawing out implications for strategic
projects)
. Techniques for understanding strategic behaviour
. Illustrations from the BT research
. Lessons and conclusion.
2. A quick overview of past literature on strategic
behaviour
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 strategic
decision-making.''
As mentioned in my previous paper, [1] it is widely
accepted that managers tend to make strategic de-
cisions in an incremental fashion, often making the
end result look somewhat disjointed, with limited
logic. [4] Strategic projects su€er from the same di-
culty, making it arduous to manage interdependencies
or to establish coherent programmes to steer im-
plementation over time.
Management decision-making has been characterised
as 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 are
made, they are often subject to a half-hearted or `weak
implementation'. [7]
Although organisational learning might hopefully
come to the rescue, [8] sadly this is very likely to
become 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±103 95

Fig. 1. The surface strategic project iceberg.

The consequence of this is that a `rational' approach
to strategy implementation, along the lines of my pre-
vious paper [1] is abandoned in favour of muddling
through. [10] Unfortunately, the muddling through can
result in profound strategic errors and
misjudgements [10] due to `bias' or `gross omissions'
(for instance, in considering alternatives).
In e€ect, conventional project management thus
focuses 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 to
address the ®t of the project with both external and in-
ternal strategic breakthroughs, and strategic vision (the
apex of the iceberg) it still does not address the deeper
more behavioural issues (see Fig. 2).
3. Techniques for understanding strategic behaviour
Our techniques for understanding the strategic beha-
viour associated with strategic projects break into
three levels of behavioural diagnosis, agenda analysis
and dynamic analysis (Fig. 3). In each case we critique
the potential problems and diculties which might
arise when implementing themÐtogether with their
possible 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' factor
analysis)Ðand sub-personalities.

Fig. 2. The underlying strategic project iceberg.

96 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Fig. 3. Analysing strategic behaviour.
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 root
cause or ®shbone analysis [1] to behavioural issues.
Although initially this may not seem like a very major
innovation, 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 strategic
project (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 an
apparently 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 then
possible to prioritise which area to intervene with, for
example by prioritising those behavioural drivers
which 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 might
include:
. Managers attribute the causes of behavioural pro-
blem to merely further symptoms rather than to
their ultimate root causes.
. Crucially important root causes are missed either
because these causes are taken-for-granted, hidden
or mis-de®ned.
. Having done the analysis no-one is prepared to use
it because of its sensitivity, and due to the lack of
knowledge and interpersonal skill in raising sensitive
issues of this kind.
Facilitation or self-challenge of the process is here
very 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 with
behavioural problems. Here it is possible to apply a
re®nement of the Fishbone technique by showing a
number of small problems on the same sheet (Fig. 6).
This is called `Piranha' analysis because each problem
on its own, whilst being non-life-threatening to the
project nevertheless eats in a major way into its likely
success. (A shoal of piranhaÐactually a very small
®shÐis apparently sucient to strip a human being
down 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 around
the main symptom. To genuinely get their arms
around and underneath the total problem, managers
need to be very careful in ensuring that there are no
major dimensions of the problem missing. For
example, one major insurance company faced a huge
resource constraint in dealing with its Year 2000 IT
problem. The piranha analysis highlighted not just
one, but several sub-problems. One was that there was
a severe shortage of IT skills in the marketplace. But a
second problem was the cumbersome way in which IT
projects were managed anyway in the organisationÐ
showing itself as an `unable to prioritise e€ectively'
symptom. A third dimension was added by the fact
 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103 97

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

that the company was the last place at which good IT actually mean by `in¯uence'. Ideally managers should
sta€ would choose to work. Each one of these symp- expose their reasons for judging `low' versus`high' in-
toms requires its own, very separate, ®shbone. ¯uence.

3.3. Importance±in¯uence analysis 3.4. Personal and strategic agendas

Whilst COBRA and Piranha analysis are essentially
initial diagnostic tools, Importance±in¯uence analysis
helps us to prioritise behavioural interventions. Fig. 7
helps us to identify which behavioural issues it is most
bene®cial to address (especially in the north-east quad-
rant). But also Fig. 7 may help to challenge thinking
about behavioural issues in the south-eastÐhow can
the team get more in¯uence over these?
Diculties which might arise with the importance±
in¯uence grid include, for example, not having clarity
about what is most important versus least important
criteria. Or, managers might not be clear what they
Coupled with the need to in¯uence behaviours (and
underlying agendas) we may need to dig deeper into
those agendas for speci®c individuals. My earlier
paper [1] dealt with the more visible positions of key
stakeholders. Personal and strategic agenda analysis
allows us to go much deeper.
Called the `PASTA' factor (because of our ®ndingÐ
at BT that both personal and strategic agendas are
often inextricably intertwinedÐ-almost like spaghetti)
this analysis can yield some major insights. Fig. 7
shows a force ®eld analysis of one individual's per-
sonal and strategic agenda. The `enabling' forces are

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

98 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Fig. 6. Piranha analysis.
now called the `attractors' (what turns that stakeholder
on) 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 `out-
of-body experience' (OBE) which entails one imagin-
ingÐand identifying withÐthe feelings, thoughts,
habits and everyday concerns (and history) of that key
stakeholder. PASTA factor analysis is an essential pre-
lude to creating behavioural scenarios for your stra-
tegic project.
One resistance to using PASTA factor analysis is
likely to be the discomfort which managers experience
when re¯ecting on their own agendas. Here it is help-
Fig. 7. Importance±in¯uence analysis.
ful for another manager (or managers) to tentatively
suggest or hypothesise that someone `might have cer-
tain X, Y and Z agendas'. The awkwardness of doing
this is signi®cantly alleviated if the enquiring man-
ager(s) explicitly say that they are having the equival-
ent of an `out-of-body experience'. This is usually
taken in a humorous vein, thus enabling the strategic
intervention to become ¯uid again.
Before we leave the topic of PASTA factors, it is
also useful to see that an individual may not always
have a coherent set of agendas. The very same individ-
ual may pursue one strategy one day, another strategy
on another day (sometimes called `stratophrenia'). [11]
A useful way of getting one's mind around this is to
use the notion of `sub-personalities'. For example, a
particular 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 cost
what has worked in the past, especially where the
person has put their own stamp of approval on it.
. A personality (C) (contrary to A and B) which is
actually quite helpful and supportive of change.
In doing the PASTA factor analysis you would need
here 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
 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Fig. 8. Personal and strategic agendas (PASTA factors).
may develop. A ®rst technique [1] is to plot some key
assumptions about the behavioural in¯uences in the
project. Fig. 9 illustrates these, also identifying where
certain behavioural assumptions which might have
seemed to have been either of less importance or lesser
uncertainty can quickly move into the south-east of
the uncertainty gridÐits `danger zone'.
Where one or more assumptions occur in this
danger zone, it is at that point that a particular beha-
vioural scenario can be drawn out. One scenario is
that the project team leader resigns and is replaced by
another team leader who then immediately conducts
an entire review of the strategic project with the result
being 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 state
of the strategic project to one which is quite di€erent.
Or, one might start o€ with a particular future and
then work backwards to de®ne the kind of behavioural
story-line which might lead up to that scenario (as in
the 1990s ®lm ``Back to the Future'').
A potential problem with using behavioural scen-
arios is that it is very possible that the scenario turns
out to be completely o€-beam. The very nature of
scenarios makes the possibility of mis-judging the
future a signi®cant risk. However the alternativesÐ
either of not looking into the behavioural future or
extrapolating from the behavioural pastÐdo not seem
viable. If there is real doubt that one particular scen-
ario fails to tease-out the main behavioural turning
points, 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.
99
. The ®rst, second or third order behavioural conse-
quence of an event within or outside the strategic
project.
Finally, you might identify one ideal behavioural
state of the project (or its behavioural vision) and then
try to map out all the behavioural factors which would
need to be aligned in order to deliver that behavioural
outcome. This can be drawn as a `®shbone'-like pic-
ture, except this time starting from the left-hand side
of the page and working forward into the future.
Because the goal of this picture is not to diagnose a
problem but to create an opportunity, and because it
deals with the future rather than the past, we call this
technique behavioural wishbone analysis (Fig. 10) [9].
Wishbone analysis is a powerful way of making sure
that 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 guard
against is that however imaginative managers are they
may fail to capture the one or two factors which still
need to be aligned but currently are not. Wishbone
analysis is most e€ective when accompanied by scen-
ario story-telling. This ensures that all the things
which need to go right do go right.
3.6. Behavioural diculty, energy and frustration over
time curves
So far (with the exception of behavioural scenarios)
we have looked primarily at the deeper drivers of stra-
tegic behaviour associated with strategic projects
rather than with the dynamics of those behaviours.
The following curves were piloted by companies
including Amersham International and Nokia.
Particularly at Nokia these curves have proved es-
pecially helpful in encouraging managers to anticipate
future behavioural diculty.
100 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Fig. 9. Uncertainty and importance mapping.
Fig. 11 plots behavioural diculty and energy over
time for a typical strategic project. Note that as the
behavioural diculty goes up, the energy of the team
frequently does down. This reduction in energy is due
partly to the decline in energy as the team gets less
enthusiastic generally, and also as a direct response to
cumulative 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 highly
likely to occur.)
Fig. 11 helps us to explain why many strategic pro-
jects become bogged down, especially three to six
months after inception.
Finally, Fig. 12 draws together the two strands of
energy over time and frustration over time curves.
Again, as frustration mounts, this again saps the
energy of the team unless it can somehow re-energise
itself or reduce its frustrations (or both).
Interestingly, managers experimenting (especially at
Nokia) with drawing these curves found it quite a cog-
Fig. 10. Behavioural wishbone analysis.
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. 11. Diculty and energy over time curves.
 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103 101

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 so
di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 involved

a number of
stages:
Fig. 12. Energy and frustration over time curves.
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 than holding attention at a more `strategic level'.
their behaviourÐand what was considered func- Subsequent feedback showing the level and dynamics
tional versus dysfunctional by them (and why). of discussion (see Fig. 13) helped the team to under-
4. Feedback by the researcher to the team on what its stand the dysfunctional e€ects of excessive `picking
key behavioural patterns seemed to be (with discus- apart' behaviour. Fig. 13 shows the discussion going
sion). through high, medium or low levels of generality, as
5. Facilitation by the researcher of a further strategic categorised by the researcher. Although this was not,
workshop sessionÐwould/could the team shift its and could not be, coded with precision, it did prove
behaviour? helpful in discerning who in the team had the greatest
6. Observation of a ®nal strategic workshop session tendency to `rabbit hole' the discussions.
where managers had the chance to try out di€erent The team found it especially helpful to refer to
behavioural patterns to those which were manifest Fig. 13 which contrasted strategic thinking from `rab-
in their previous state. bit-hole thinking'. As discussion proceeded the team
7. Feedback of the overall ®ndings (and discussion). members were able to re¯ect ``are we actually in the
helicopter in our thinking, or have we gone down a
The overall process took place over a four-month rabbit hole?''
periodÐin order to allow any shifts in behaviour to Another important ®nding came out of Phases 5)
occur and to allow data to be digested. and 6). When the team had a narrower focus of atten-
The main ®ndings of the research [2] were as fol- tion and also when it was more able to share the cog-
lows: nitive maps and assumptions of key individuals, there
First, the BT managers themselves were frequently seemed to be far greater momentum and harmony in
frustrated at the slow progress of key strategic issues its behaviours. So the more cognitive clarity exists
and projects. Their discussions were often too open- within a team, ceteris paribus, the less behavioural tur-
ended, inconclusive and di€use to produce more bulence is likely to exist.
focused outputs. Their interactions were swayed by a
number of behavioural factors which appeared to han-
dicap their e€ectiveness. These ®ndings were generated
by the phases 1) to 3) of the research.
The cause-of-behaviour analysis (COBRA) which
was a central part of the feedback to managers is
shown in Fig. 14. This (tailored) ®shbone analysis
proved 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 try
something better'.
In the facilitated session (phase 5) the team again
ran into diculties as old behaviours (not surprisingly)
persisted. A most interesting ®nding was the tendency
of key members of the team to focus on more micro-
scopic issues (and often going o€ at a tangent) rather
102 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103
Another interesting ®nding was that certain be-
havioural drivers had the tendency to govern the cog-
nitive subject matter of the managers. The main
drivers 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 certain
views about the attractiveness of a particular technol-
ogy with BT's strategy. His cognitive assumptions
were imbued with considerable feeling. But at the same
time those views represented a particular `ideas terri-
tory' which he had staked out as being `right and
appropriate for BT'.
This notion of `ideas territory' is likely to be very
helpful elsewhere, especially when a particular strategic
project is complex and where a particular idea of `how
it will work or not work' can come to dominate the
wider project team's thinking. And to challenge the
dominant 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-regulate
their own behaviour and cognitive interplay, some
very notable shifts in behaviours occurred. One
particularly interesting change occurred when using
the importance-in¯uence grid. As the BT managers
began to discuss what issues they had high versus low
in¯uence over, they became remarkably calmer and
more ¯uid. Instead of operating at a predominantly
low and microscopic level of debate they began to
glide e€ortlessly up and down through the levels. In
their own judgement, they delivered a good deal more
(and in a shorter period of time) than in their previous
sessions.
To summarise, then, we found that:
. Cause of behaviour analysis (COBRA) was a power-
ful and e€ective way of managers' re¯ecting on past
behaviour, feeding into real behavioural shift.
. The strategic thinking/helicopter picture helped pro-
vide some useful visual prompts to focus on certain
behaviours more and on other behaviours less.
. Narrowing the focus of strategic attention helped to
gain more cognitive clarity which, in turn, calmed
much of the behavioural turbulence. This was also
facilitated by the use of the importance-in¯uence
grid which helped to provide a stabilising, cognitive
focus.
. Re¯ection on personal agendas helped the team to
challenge the dominant `ideas territory' which might
have hindered more innovative thinking.
The team felt generally that the action research had
been a very fruitful process, both for re¯ecting on and
shifting their behaviours, and also for providing more
shared structure in their cognitive debate. This led to
them incorporating several of the techniques into
future team sessions.
5. Lessons and conclusion
Strategic projects have become a vital way of brid-
ging strategic and operational management, but their
very success is impeded by a lack of both analytical
and behavioural techniques. Whilst the analytical tech-
niques have already been addressed, [11] arguably it is
equally important (and probably more dicult) to
manage the behavioural drivers impacting on strategic
projects. Hopefully managers of strategic projects
everywhere can now experiment successfully with those
practical techniques for channelling strategic behaviour
for their projects.
From research at BT (and related studies) a number
of behavioural techniques now exist which provide
managers with some very practical and in-depth ways
of managing the strategic behaviour associated with
strategic projects. A focus on strategic behaviour needs
championing in the organisation as it represents a
major shift in how things are done. This would require
not merely input from internal human resources facili-
tators or from outside but also leadership executive or
equivalent. For it is up to him/her ultimately if there is
to be a new openness and incisiveness in the inter-
action within senior teams.
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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.
 T. Grundy / International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 93±103 103

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).