How to Keep Strategic Projects Moving

Most businesses have projects they know they need to deliver.

A new system. A new product or service. Opening another location. Changing the way the business operates. Recruiting a key person. Improving the sales process. Reducing costs. Entering a new market.

They normally start with plenty of enthusiasm. There is a meeting, a plan is produced and everyone agrees that the project is important. Then the day job gets in the way.

A customer needs attention. Somebody leaves. Sales have a difficult month. A supplier causes a problem. Another urgent issue appears and gradually the strategic project moves further down the list. It hasn't been cancelled. It just isn't really moving.

For growing businesses, this is a bigger problem than it might first appear, because the projects that get delayed are often the very projects needed to support the next stage of growth.

Strategy only creates value when something changes

Businesses spend a lot of time talking about strategy, but ultimately strategy has to translate into action. If the strategy says the business needs better systems, somebody has to implement them. If growth requires a stronger management team, somebody needs to recruit and develop that team. If profitability needs to improve, somebody has to understand where margin is being lost and make the changes needed to improve it.

The gap between deciding what should happen and actually making it happen is where many businesses struggle. Often this isn't because people don't care. It is because the people responsible for delivering strategic projects already have full-time jobs. When something operational becomes urgent, the strategic project is usually the thing that gets pushed back.

Every project needs clear ownership

One of the simplest questions I ask about any project is: who owns it?

Not who attends the meetings. Not which department it belongs to. Who is actually responsible for getting it delivered? If the answer is “the leadership team”, “we all are” or “it sits with operations”, there is a good chance nobody truly owns it.

Someone needs to be responsible for maintaining the plan, chasing actions, identifying problems and making sure decisions are made. That doesn't mean they personally have to complete every task, but they do need to own the outcome. Without that ownership, projects drift surprisingly quickly.

But ownership isn't enough

A project can be well managed and still be a poor business decision. This is where finance needs to be part of strategic delivery.

At the start of a project there is normally an assumption about what it will cost and what benefit it will create. Perhaps it will save £50,000 a year, increase capacity, improve margin or generate additional sales. But those assumptions often receive far less attention once the project has started.

The project team concentrates on whether milestones are being completed. The leadership team asks whether the project is on schedule. Those are important questions, but they are not the only ones.

We should also be asking: What have we spent? What are we committed to spend? Is the original return still realistic? What is the impact on cash? Have the assumptions changed? Is this still the best use of the business's money?

A project being “on track” doesn't necessarily mean it is still creating value.

Cash can stop a good project

Growing businesses are particularly vulnerable to this because growth consumes cash. You may be profitable on paper while simultaneously funding additional stock, more people, new equipment and longer customer payment terms. Add a major strategic project into the mix and the cash requirement can increase quickly.

That is why project decisions and financial forecasting shouldn't exist separately.

If you are planning to spend £100,000 implementing a new system over six months, that needs to appear in the cash-flow forecast. If a project requires three new employees before additional revenue arrives, that needs to be visible too.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't invest. It means you should understand the consequences of the investment before the bank balance tells you.

The numbers should help you make decisions

Good management information becomes particularly valuable when projects don't go exactly to plan, which most don't. Perhaps implementation costs have increased by 20%. Perhaps the anticipated sales haven't appeared as quickly as expected. Perhaps the project has taken three months longer than planned.

At that point the original business case is no longer enough. You need current information.

• Do we continue?
• Do we change the scope?
• Do we slow down?
• Do we invest more to get the project finished?
• Or has something changed sufficiently that stopping is now the sensible decision?

Those aren't simply project management decisions. They are commercial decisions and good financial information allows the leadership team to make them with confidence.

Keep the review simple

None of this requires a huge project governance structure. For most SME strategic projects, a regular review covering a few fundamental questions is enough.

• Where are we against the plan?
• What has been completed?
• What isn't moving?
• What decisions are needed?
• What has been spent?
• What are we forecasting to spend?
• Are the financial benefits still achievable?
• What happens to cash over the next few months?

The point isn't to create more meetings or more reports. It is to bring delivery and finance together. Because if the project plan says everything is green but the financial forecast says otherwise, you have a problem.

This is where a good finance function adds value

A finance function should do more than process transactions and tell you what happened last month. It should help the leadership team understand the financial consequences of what they are planning to do next. That means having reliable monthly accounts, cash-flow forecasting and meaningful management information, but it also means using that information when making decisions about projects and investment.

In a growing SME, the Finance Director or finance lead should be part of the conversation about strategic delivery, not somebody who discovers the financial consequences afterwards.

This is an important part of how we see Blue Dragonfly. It isn't simply about producing accounts. It is about creating the financial visibility that helps owners and leadership teams run the business and make better decisions.