Business Management ABCs

Project Management Strategies Series Article 4 – Sword Analysis, Swot With an Edge

In my previous article in this series, Change Management, I wrote about the importance of exploring alternatives.

In this article, I discuss a structured method for exploring alternatives that will help you and your customers understand the options, pros and cons for each, and help you drive to consensus quickly.

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Becoming skilled in this exercise means you’ll never have to say the words, “no” or “can’t” to your customers. Instead, you can collaboratively review a lot of different options, and make informed decisions that will work for everyone.

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Before we pull out the SWORD, let’s review the SWOT.

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The SWOT analysis is an industry standard tool used to describe several options, and detail the (S)trengths (W)eaknesses (O)pportunities and (T)hreats associated with each option. The SWOT analysis is the foundation of my SWORD analysis.

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Why not just use SWOT? It limits the decision making to a single option. Too often, I found myself stuck using this analysis because people could not come to agreement over a single option. The beauty of my SWORD analysis is it brings people out of the box, and allows for flexibility, and, more importantly, creativity.

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We covered the SWOT acronym so what does SWORD mean?

• Strengths – List the strengths (pros) for each option.
• Weaknesses – List the weaknesses (cons) for each option
• Opportunities – List any opportunities that the option creates. This ones a little challenging and takes practice.
• Risks – How does the option affect the quadruple constraint for the project? Scope, Schedule, Cost, and Quality
• Decisions – This is the key difference in the SWORD analysis. Instead of limiting decisions to a single option, this element allows the CCB to pick and choose different elements from each option and ultimately drives to consensus quickly.

OK – so how do you do it?

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1. Create a table with the following columns

• Option
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Risks
• Decisions

2. Call a meeting with your key stakeholders

3. Fill the cells in the table in together

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Of course, steps 2 and 3 are not always viable options. In that case, take a crack at filling the grid out first by yourself (leave the Decisions column blank). Then, send it out to everyone as a “straw man” and request feedback. Then bring everyone together to complete the Decisions column.

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I guarantee, this will make coming to a decision a breeze.

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Keep reading and I’ll keep writing!

Steve

Steve Yuhas is an accomplished project manager with a focus on efficient software engineering through data driven process improvement and simplification. He has applied his skills to a variety of industries, and has most recently begun some personal ventures like MarketCastle.com