By accident I recently came across an article that I have first read a few years ago, published in MIT Sloan Management Review. And I still find the core idea a very current one: how project management can benefit from brand management. The basic idea is that there is a market for projects inside any larger institution and in order to build support for their project ideas, teams need to build a compelling project brand – very similar to a brand for products, services or even people – but directed towards an internal target group such as the board (or whoever makes decisions about projects and budgets). In the article, the authors cite evidence from 3M, a company that very heavily depends on an innovation and project management mindset. Within 3M “sexy” projects receive significantly higher support – and a project’s sexiness is determined by how well the project lead sells the idea. But effective internal communication (or internal idea marketing) is often overlooked by project managers who focus on This negligence of basic communications and marketing rather than an actually bad idea then often results in lacking top-management support:
“In their preoccupation with task accomplishment, project leaders frequently overlook the importance of establishing, maintaining and communicating to key stakeholders a clear, consistent and compelling vision of project purpose, goals and benefits.”
Hence a good communication or even brand strategy increases the chances for success of a project significantly – making it worthwhile to spend project res
sources on such strategy. Read the full article, which includes more details about how to actually brand a project here:
Why Every Project Needs a Brand (and How to Create One)
Project leaders should frame projects the same way marketing managers frame branding efforts.