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Strategic Management

The Strategic Management domain supports high-level strategic planning and alignment across the organization. It provides the framework for defining organizational vision, strategies, and themes that guide investment decisions and work prioritization.

How Strategic Management Connects Across Wayd​

Strategic Management provides the "why" behind the "what" in PPM and Planning:

Visions and strategies have no screens yet

Strategic themes are managed in the app. Visions and strategies are managed only through the API: there is no page or menu entry for them.

Key Concepts​

Visions​

A Vision describes the desired future state of the organization. It provides the overarching direction that strategies and themes support.

Every vision has:

  • Description — The vision statement
  • State — Proposed, Active, or Archived
  • Dates — Start and optional end timestamps, set by its transitions

Lifecycle:

  • Proposed — Being drafted
  • Active — The current organizational vision. Activating stamps the moment it happens as the start
  • Archived — A previous vision kept for historical reference. Archiving stamps the moment it happens as the end

Business rules:

  • Only one vision can be Active at any time — activating a new vision requires archiving the current one first
  • Only a Proposed vision can be activated, and only an Active one archived
  • Archived visions cannot have overlapping date ranges, and a vision cannot be activated inside the most recently archived vision's range
  • Archived visions cannot be updated

Strategies​

A Strategy defines the approach for achieving the vision. Strategies are independent of visions, allowing flexible use cases.

Every strategy has:

  • Name and optional Description
  • Status — Draft, Active, Completed, or Archived
  • Date Range — Optional start date, with an optional end date

A strategy's status is set directly when it is created or updated. Wayd enforces no order between Draft, Active, Completed, and Archived, and no dates for any of them.

Strategic Themes​

Strategic Themes are the primary organizing concept in Strategic Management. They represent high-level organizational priorities that guide investment decisions and work prioritization.

Every theme has:

  • Name and Description
  • State — Proposed, Active, or Archived

Business rules:

  • Only Proposed themes can be deleted
  • State transitions publish domain events consumed by other domains (PPM maintains a synchronized copy)
  • Active themes can be used to tag projects and programs

A theme's detail page carries an Activity section holding its recorded history: what changed, who changed it, and when. See Activity Log.

How Strategic Themes Connect to Other Domains​

Strategic themes are referenced across Wayd to ensure organizational alignment:

  • Projects can be tagged with strategic themes to show which priorities they support
  • Programs can be tagged with strategic themes for portfolio-level alignment
  • Strategic Initiatives within portfolios track KPIs to measure strategic progress. Initiatives carry no themes of their own

This cross-domain tagging enables organizations to answer questions like:

  • "Which projects support our Digital Transformation theme?"
  • "How much of our portfolio is aligned to each strategic priority?"
  • "Are we investing proportionally across our strategic themes?"

Strategic themes appear as filterable tags in PPM grids and timelines, making alignment visible in portfolio, program, and project views.

Program Themes and Project Themes​

Programs and projects each carry their own themes. A program's themes state what it was set up to pursue, often before any of its projects exist; a project's themes describe the work it delivers.

Where a project's work is attributed to themes, such as in the Work Distribution Report, Wayd uses the project's effective themes: its own themes when it has any, and otherwise its program's. A project's own themes replace its program's rather than adding to them. A project's themes are not required to be among its program's.

Common Tasks​

Defining a Vision​

Through the API:

  1. Create a new vision with a description of the desired future state
  2. Review and refine the vision statement
  3. Activate the vision (only one vision can be Active)
  4. When the vision evolves, Archive the current vision and create a new one

Defining Strategic Themes​

  1. Navigate to PPM > Strategic Themes
  2. Click Create Strategic Theme
  3. Enter a Name and Description
  4. The theme is created in Proposed state
  5. Activate the theme when ready for use across the organization

Tagging Projects with Themes​

  1. Navigate to a project's detail page
  2. Choose Edit from the Actions menu
  3. Add one or more active strategic themes in Strategic Themes, and save
  4. The project is now aligned to those themes, visible in portfolio and program views

Programs are tagged the same way, from Edit on the program's detail page. Themes can also be chosen when a project or program is created.

Viewing Strategic Alignment​

Portfolio and program views aggregate strategic theme tags from their child projects. Use the following views to assess alignment:

Business Rules Summary​

RuleDescription
Single active visionOnly one vision can be Active at any time
Vision datesActivating sets the start; archiving sets the end
No overlapping archivesArchived visions cannot have overlapping date ranges
Archived immutabilityArchived visions cannot be updated
Theme deletionOnly Proposed themes can be deleted
Cross-domain syncTheme changes publish events to keep PPM copies synchronized