While an organizations main purpose may be to provide a product or service, organizational strategy addresses how an organization will be competitive while completing its main purpose. An organization can gain a competitive edge by offering better pricing or value than competitors, offering higher quality or more customized services, or by offering a combination of features that will attract customers to their products and services. The projects that an organization implements need to support both the purpose of the organization and the competitive strategy. Any projects that do no support these goals will be counterproductive and will ultimately harm the organization. Projects that are well aligned with organizational strategy will be more efficient, productive, and produce better results for the organization. The alignment between project management and organizational strategy is formed during the defining and planning stages of a projects life cycle. This alignment should be established by the time the project reaches the execution phase but should be regularly checked to ensure that the project is fulfilling the strategy of the organization. An example of this could involve a company starting a research and development project to study a new material that could be incorporated into their manufacturing process. If the organizations strategy is to provide lighter and stronger products, the focus of the research project should be limited to this scope. This is established in the defining and planning phases. During the execution phase, however, if the project team starts to investigate additional applications of the material, the project needs to be refocused because this function is not aligned with

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