- How do you evaluate and quantify the relative contribution of projects versus business-as-usual (BAU) activities toward achieving a strategic objective?
- Have you adopted a structured framework or methodology to assess strategic contribution, or is the evaluation primarily based on qualitative judgment?
- Should Strategic Alignment Evaluation focus on measuring the contribution of individual initiatives, or should it evaluate the collective impact of all initiatives and BAU activities supporting a strategic objective? Why?
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Perhaps the first distinction is between strategic alignment and strategic contribution. An initiative may be perfectly aligned with an objective and still contribute very little to achieving it.
I would therefore be cautious about trying to divide contribution neatly between projects and BAU. Projects often create capabilities, while BAU adoption and operational use help convert those capabilities into outcomes. The contribution is frequently interdependent rather than additive.
For me, the PMO should evaluate both levels, but through the causal pathways connecting initiatives, capabilities, adoption, outcomes, and strategic objectives. Otherwise, we risk turning qualitative judgment into precise-looking scores without actually understanding what is creating value. Saving Changes...
I like the distinction Luis made between strategic alignment and strategic contribution. From a PMO perspective, I think this is where the conversation becomes more valuable. Many initiatives can appear aligned on paper, but the real question is whether they are creating capability, driving adoption, and generating measurable progress toward the strategic objective. I would be cautious about assigning contributions too neatly between projects and BAU. In many cases, the project creates the capability, but BAU adoption converts that capability into actual value. So the PMO may need to look at the full pathway: initiative => capability => adoption => outcome => strategic objective. In my opinion, the Strategic Alignment Evaluation should not be limited to a scoring exercise at the approval stage. It should remain visible through benefits tracking, portfolio reviews, and evidence-based discussions on whether the expected value is actually being realized. Saving Changes...
Imran AfzalAuthor| The Strategic PMOCary, NC, United States
Helmy,
I think one of the biggest challenges is that strategic contribution is often treated as a measurement problem when it is first an interpretation problem.
Two leadership teams can review the same portfolio data and reach very different conclusions about which initiatives are creating value. The difference is often not the data itself, but how leaders interpret capability creation, adoption, operational performance, and strategic outcomes.
For that reason, I would be cautious about trying to quantify the relative contribution of projects versus business-as-usual activities too precisely. Projects typically create new organizational capabilities, while BAU determines whether those capabilities are adopted, sustained, and ultimately translated into business value. A perfectly executed project may contribute very little if the organization never changes the way it operates.
I also believe strategic alignment and strategic contribution are related but distinct concepts. An initiative can be perfectly aligned with a strategic objective and still make only a modest contribution to achieving it. Alignment tells us whether we are investing in the right direction; contribution tells us whether those investments are actually creating meaningful outcomes.
Rather than asking, "How much did this project contribute?" I think a more useful question is, "What evidence do we have that this initiative changed the organization's capability, influenced operational behavior, and moved us closer to the intended strategic outcome?"
From that perspective, Strategic Alignment Evaluation should not be limited to a scoring exercise during portfolio approval. It should remain visible throughout execution by examining the causal relationships between strategic intent, initiatives, organizational capability, operational adoption, and business outcomes.
To me, that is where a PMO creates the greatest value—not simply by reporting alignment, but by helping leadership develop a shared understanding of how strategy is actually being translated into results.
Financial Management Specialist | US Peace CorpsYaounde, Centre, Cameroon
Jul 05, 2026 2:06 PM
Replying to Imran Afzal
...
Helmy,
I think one of the biggest challenges is that strategic contribution is often treated as a measurement problem when it is first an interpretation problem.
Two leadership teams can review the same portfolio data and reach very different conclusions about which initiatives are creating value. The difference is often not the data itself, but how leaders interpret capability creation, adoption, operational performance, and strategic outcomes.
For that reason, I would be cautious about trying to quantify the relative contribution of projects versus business-as-usual activities too precisely. Projects typically create new organizational capabilities, while BAU determines whether those capabilities are adopted, sustained, and ultimately translated into business value. A perfectly executed project may contribute very little if the organization never changes the way it operates.
I also believe strategic alignment and strategic contribution are related but distinct concepts. An initiative can be perfectly aligned with a strategic objective and still make only a modest contribution to achieving it. Alignment tells us whether we are investing in the right direction; contribution tells us whether those investments are actually creating meaningful outcomes.
Rather than asking, "How much did this project contribute?" I think a more useful question is, "What evidence do we have that this initiative changed the organization's capability, influenced operational behavior, and moved us closer to the intended strategic outcome?"
From that perspective, Strategic Alignment Evaluation should not be limited to a scoring exercise during portfolio approval. It should remain visible throughout execution by examining the causal relationships between strategic intent, initiatives, organizational capability, operational adoption, and business outcomes.
To me, that is where a PMO creates the greatest value—not simply by reporting alignment, but by helping leadership develop a shared understanding of how strategy is actually being translated into results.
Thank you all for your insightful perspective. I have a follow-up question regarding public sector organizations. In a public institution, strategic objectives are often achieved through a combination of new initiatives (projects and programs) and business-as-usual (BAU) activities, both of which are part of the institution's developmental mandate. If the improvement in a strategic objective results from the combined effect of these efforts, how would you recommend evaluating strategy execution at the strategic objective level without knowing the specific contribution of each project or BAU activity? Similarly, how can benefits realization be assessed in a credible way if it is difficult to attribute the realized benefits to a particular project versus ongoing operational activities? Would you recommend focusing on attribution, contribution, or another evaluation approach? Saving Changes...
Strategic alignment is one of the biggest responsibilities of a PMO. Regularly reviewing whether projects still support business goals helps teams prioritize the right initiatives, allocate resources effectively, and maximize ROI. It's a continuous process rather than a one-time check, especially as organizational priorities evolve. Saving Changes...
In my experience, I evaluate strategic contribution through a structured portfolio framework, looking at both projects and BAU against outcomes such as business value, regulatory obligations, risk reduction, customer impact, operational efficiency and strategic priorities. I use a combination of strategic alignment scoring, WSJF/MoSCoW, benefits, capacity and dependency analysis, supported by leadership judgement where outcomes are harder to quantify. However, the biggest challenge is that BAU often delivers significant strategic value but is not measured in the same way as projects, while benefits can be indirect, shared across multiple initiatives, or realised over different timeframes. Therefore, I assess individual initiatives for prioritisation, but ultimately evaluate their collective contribution to determine whether the overall portfolio and BAU are actually moving the organisation toward the strategic objective, rather than simply measuring activity or project completion. Saving Changes...
I believe both projects and BAU should be evaluated together because strategic objectives are achieved through their combined impact. A structured framework based on KPIs and expected benefits is more effective than relying only on qualitative judgment. I would assess both individual initiatives for accountability and the overall contribution of all initiatives and BAU to measure real strategic progress. Saving Changes...
Most PMOs use a weighted scoring model tied to strategic KPIs, not pure judgment; each project and BAU activity gets a contribution % toward the objective. Example: for "reduce churn by 10%," a retention project might score 6% and BAU support improvements 4%, so leadership sees the full picture on one scorecard.
Evaluation should measure collective impact, not individual initiatives alone, because BAU keeps the baseline steady while projects drive the delta; judging them separately hides what's actually causing success or failure. Saving Changes...
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