This big initiative could make or break this fiscal year - or your career.

Strategic initiatives are where the rubber meets the road when it comes to putting strategy into action, and leading a critical initiative may be the key to propelling your career forward. Yet managing a cross-functional team on a high-profile project can present a multitude of challenges and risks, causing even the most experienced manager to struggle.

The HBR Guide to Managing Strategic Initiatives provides practical tips and advice to help you manage all the stages of an initiative's life cycle, from buy-in to launch, implementation to scaling up or winding down. You'll learn how to: launch an initiative in a way that maximizes its chance of success, assemble a team that's ready to perform, gather the resources you need, stay on schedule and within budget, avoid losing momentum once the initiative is up and running, maintain the confidence of sponsors and stakeholders, and put strategy into action.