Primary Focus: Target’s acquisition of Zellers lease locations

PM Lesson: Strategic commitments can become project constraints before the project team is ready.

This episode examines the real estate decision that gave Target rapid access to the Canadian market. Acquiring lease interests allowed Target to enter Canada at scale, but it also created enormous pressure to open stores quickly. Once money was committed and locations were secured, delay became expensive and politically difficult.

The PM lesson is that projects often inherit constraints created by strategy. A project manager may not create the business case, but they must manage the consequences of it.

Key PM Questions:

When does a strategic opportunity become an execution trap?

How do sunk costs dist ...