This recap of Executing and Strategic Thinking in project management is part two of a series on how we can map skills from the CliftonStrengths domains onto project management to articulate how our experience transfers. (Catch up with Part 1, where we covered Relationship-Building and Influencing skills, here!)

And as we open with execution... we're looking at one of the most misunderstood skill sets in all of PM!

What is Execution in Project Management?

Most of the misunderstandings around what is and is not "execution in project management" can be cleared up pretty quickly by coming back to a core truth of project management:

Managing the work is not the same thing as doing the work.

Remember that project managers aren't necessarily responsible for completing the individual pieces of work that go into a project (this is why you'll often hear that project managers don't have to know how to code, or draw, or practice law!). When I think about the power that strong executors channel when they lead teams, regardless of functional area, I think about things like:

• ​Arrangers setting up project plans: making the complex simple and accessible for broad and diverse teams.
• Using Consistency to develop and refine process that saves time and increases efficiency.
• Leveraging the Restorative skill during the Monitoring & Controlling phase of the Project Life Cycle to identify issues and make recommendations around how to respond.

I also think about the times I've worked under leaders strong in Responsibility, Belief, or Deliberation. These are my favorite leaders to work for, because I know I can relax into just doing my own thing as an individual contributor because they've got values-alignment on lock. I trust them because of their strengths in execution.

Notice that nothing I've said in any of this involves someone performing as an individual contributor. Project management by definition means shifting from thinking about contributing to initiatives by doing work yourself to thinking about contributing to intiatives by organizing, monitoring, and stewarding resources -- including the labor of others.

So the cautionary tale here is that if you are someone who excels in execution, you may have gotten quite far based on narratives of how well you perform. (I've noticed that this is particularly true if you are very skilled in Discipline, Achiever, or Focus.)

You must shift this narrative to describing how you execute as a manager, not as an individual contributor. An example of this subtle difference:

• "This fall, as part of Welcome Week, I put on the student organization fair with the largest participation my division has ever seen." This is how an individual contributor would talk about executing a program.
• "This fall, as part of Welcome Week, I oversaw the planning, staffing, scheduling, budgeting, and assessment of our annual student organization fair, and we saw record-setting participation." This is how a manager would talk about executing managing a program: we're pulling from the project life cycle and demonstrating an understanding of the role of a manager when we describe our work. (Notice that this is easily adaptable, even if you're a team of one 🙂)

Now this is a wonderful segue into Strategic Thinking, which asks us to think about one fundamental question as we're thinking about how all of these skills come together:

If you don't think about ANYTHING ELSE when thinking about how to articulate your skills as a project manager... think about the answer to this question!!

Strategic Thinking Involves Operationalizing Value

I've been harping on value as long as I've been writing this blog (everyone in my life in one chorus: "longer, actually"), and let me tell you: it's not for nothing. The very most important question you can ask yourself is always "How am I adding value to my projects?"

But let's back up... what do we mean when we talk about "value" in the first place, and how does it relate to "strategy"? Here are my loose definitions for both terms: