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Project Management
Project Management
It consists of:
SWOT analsis.
Objectives
Internal SWOT
SWOT
Brainstorming
ee
External
Project
possibilities
Criteria
Screening
To increase profits
To minimize threats
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SWOT analysis
Where/When it
works well
Opportunites Threats
Preparing to SWOT
SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or venture.
It involves:
Examples include:
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Preparing to SWOT
Note: Conducting a SWOT analysis before defining and agreeing upon an objective is
almost always doomed to serious problems.
A SWOT analysis should not exist in the abstract, if it does it will produce no value but will
have wasted time and will damage the credibility of the person who started/oversaw the
process.
If the desired end state is not openly defined and agreed upon, the participants may have
different end states in mind and the results will be ineffective.
Opportunities external to the subject are often confused with strengths internal to the subject.
They should be kept separate.
SWOTs are sometimes erroneously viewed as an end in themselves. They are not. SWOTs
are descriptions of conditions, and as such the critical thing is to go on to the next stage,
which is to look at each description of a condition and ask “So what?”
Strengths: attributes of the organization those are helpful to achieving the objective.
Weaknesses: attributes of the organization that are harmful to achieving the objective
Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective
Threats: external conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective
Strengths weaknesses
Opportunities Threats
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Getting together a SWOT Team
Ideally a cross-functional team or a task force that represents a broad range of perspectives,
related to the objective, should carry out the SWOT analysis. For example, a SWOT team for
the launch of a new service or product may include; a sales person, a product design or
service delivery specialist, a manager who will be responsible for the product/service, and
someone from the finance function who will pay/invoice for the product/service
1. Once you have got your team together and you have defined and agreed your objective
you are ready to start SWOTting.
2. Traditionally people use a flipchart and divide it into four quadrants; this has
advantages and disadvantages;
On the plus side this neatly shows the whole thing on one page but;
On the minus side it tends to constrain you to a relatively small space for
each aspect; once you have filled that space folk want to move on to the
next but you may not have a comprehensive analysis.
3. Use four pages of A1, each marked with the title of a component of SWOT, each stuck
to a different wall of your meeting room. Give each person a Post-it pad and ask him
or her to complete one note for each item, putting them on the relevant page
4. Once you have exhausted your individual minds of ideas, examine each Post-it as a
group.
5. Discuss each one, grouping similar/same points together and ensuring that everyone
understands what the writer of each Post-it meant. Check that you have got them on
the right page. Challenge what might be “glib” or “political” comments (almost every
SWOT has, under “Strengths”, “Our reputation”….is our reputation a strength, really,
or should we accept that it is actually a bit tarnished?
6. Discard any repetition Post-
7. Once everyone is happy that you have assessed and analyzed all contributions put all
the pages on the same wall.
8. Take a moment to ask yourselves what we may have missed.
9. Agree who when and how you are going to complete your next step (this is turning the
SWOT into a plan.)
Get it typed up before all the Post-its fall off!
Identification of SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for
achievement of the selected objective are to be derived from the SWOTs.
The people who are going to plan may or may not be the people who carried out the SWOT,
this will depend on the circumstance and the style of your organization.
1. The decision makers have to determine whether the objective is attainable, given the
SWOTs.
If the objective is NOT attainable a different objective must be selected and the
process started afresh
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2. If, on the other hand, the objective seems attainable, then we must look at each
individual SWOT condition and ask “S’Wot?” the SWOTs are used as inputs to the
creative generation of possible strategies, by asking and answering each of the
following four questions, many times:
Can we do to Use each Strength to achieve our goal?
“Yes”, we ask,
“$X” so we ask
“Yes” so we aks
“Yes”
“SWOT.” will probably generate a number of options and from these we can either choose the
course of action we will take and develop a direct SMART objective, or we might need to set
an indirect SMART objective to consider the options and then decide on our course of action.
Brainstorming
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Listing of ideas without suppressing
Screening of ideas
*Implementation