Patanakul and Shenhar (2012) document that ‘strategic thinking’ is rare in project literature as strategic management is mainly focused on the firm. The realisation that many innovation projects are initiated to achieve business results and require close alignment with firm strategy has led to the emergence of the SPM concept and approach.

There are many different definitions of the term ‘strategic management’, but the following definitions are representative: “Strategic management is defined as the process by which a firm manages the formulation and implementation of a strategy” (Rice, Martin et al., 2010). “Strategic management is the process of matching the organisation’s characteristics to the external environment. This is a continuous process of analysis, synthesis, action-taking and evaluation” (Grant, Butler et al., 2014). Note that these statements also support the application of contingency theory. It is then natural to define the SPM concept as the process involved in formulating and implementing project strategy and a project strategy as the output of an SPM process. Thus, the SPM process generates insight that can be used by project managers to design the project strategy. The project strategy can then be used and modified to successfully navigate the often uncertain and unpredictable project innovation journey.

Project strategy is also an emerging concept in the literature on project management. Several authors suggest that project managers should use a project strategy and claim that an appropriate project strategy will contribute to the project’s success. Studies show that project strategy contributes to improved project performance and that it is critical to the success of all types of projects. The concept of project strategy is considered viable and persuasive by several authors but researchers and practitioners lack an understanding of how it is formulated and realised in practice. There is still debate regarding just what a project strategy for a PIP involves, although research by Patanakul and Shenhar (2012) and Patanakul, Shenhar et al. (2012) is encouraging as it provides an initial listing of the project strategy elements in an understandable format. Patanakul and Shenhar’s (2012) research identified the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ elements of a project strategy. Unfortunately, their research does not clearly identify how the ‘why’ and ‘what’ information in the project strategy is derived, nor does it shed light on how a project strategy contributes to the development of appropriate project capabilities. Thus further research is suggested to address this gap.

Inspiration as to how a project strategy could be formulated and realised in practice is provided by the ‘classical firm strategy’ work by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand et al. (1998) and the recent ‘strategy cycle’ suggestion by MacLean and MacIntosh (2015). MacLean and MacIntosh (2015) identified three distinct firm strategy styles: (i) intent-driven strategy approaches that emphasise objectives, goals and intentions; (ii) trend-driven strategies that scan the horizon looking for advance notice of future tastes, trends and technologies, and (iii) resource-driven strategies that look for opportunities to deploy existing skills and know-how. Both Mintzberg, Ahlstrand et al. (1998) and MacLean and MacIntosh (2015) suggest that integrating strategic logic with creative processes is appropriate. Nevertheless, it is also clear that further research into the process of SPM is required.