How Culture Trumps Strategy

About the apparent irrelevance of good projects and strategy

You have likely heard about this project — let’s call it “Project R”. Its goal was to deliver a product (let’s call it “T”) to the market, directly competing against Project D and its product, “H”. This type of head-to-head competition is quite rare in business, and is an opportunity to highlight some significant dynamics.

The best project

Project R was plagued with issues. It faced numerous legal issues, and as the go-live date approached, the product became increasingly chaotic. Presentations veered off-script, devolving into rambling attacks on the competitor, spreading questionable claims about the product itself, the market, and the rival product.

In contrast, project D had a larger budget and appeared to be very well organized. It even survived a complete product redesign just three months before delivery. The project reached the go-live date with optimism and a seemingly robust process in place.

And yet, despite all this, Project R won. How is that possible?

The best strategy

Analyses have identified several potential strategic mistakes made by Project D:

• Wasting time and resources on an outdated product design (product “B”) before the redesign;
• Lack of some fundamental qualities in product H, whose intrinsic characteristics made it…