Applying Strategic Project Management as a new Approach to Project Management

Today, in most project-based organizations, project managers are facing with many challenges. Projects are organizational strategic processes, performed to achieve business goals. Researches indicate a large number of organizations do not achieve the business goals in the execution of their projects. Therefore, in order to reduce and control the problems of the projects, the classic project management approach must be changed to strategic project management for optimizing the performance and success of a project. Strategic project management can propel companies to better achieve corporate goals. So, organizations should have a formal planning and execution framework in accordance with the strategic approach, to achieve competitive advantage and better performance. Project managers and teams must learn how to focus the business aspects of their projects and better support their company’s strategy, rather than just focus on meeting traditional time, budget, and performance goals. This paper employs a literature review approach, and presents the description of the strategic project management concept and its difference with classical project management. Then, the strategic project management models that help organizations to achieve success and create a competitive advantage have been reviewed. Finally, the authors have concluded, in order to achieve competitive advantage, project success and better performance of organization, the executive and project managers should consider the strategic aspect of project management and implement strategic project management processes in organization.