The Project Business Model SWOT

This post is the sixth in a series of ten about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with.

The Project Business Model SWOT

This a simple SWOT covering the basic assumptions you have over the external and internal forces influencing the project. The enhancers are forces that work to make your project a success. The silencers are forces that work to make your project disappear from the change radar.

Make sure that you follow the business model component structure when outlining the SWOT, to ensure that people easily can relate the work back to the Project Business Model Canvas. When we design the SWOT cards we follow these three simple rules:

1. Internal forces should focus on business model components from the left side, that is Key partners, Key resources, Key activities.
2.  External forces should focus on business model components from the right side, that is Customer segment, Relationships, Channels.
3. All quadrants can use the business model components Value propositions, Effects, Revenue streams, Cost structure.

 

 

When you plan the project SWOT, do so in a workshop format. Give everyone a set of cards that they can outline their own view of the work on, then merge all cards on a wall sized card. After the merge the group can prioritize using dots or any other marker on the wall sized card. Don’t forget to work the conclusions from the SWOT exercise back into the material you have created and consider in all the future material.

This is as all the work in The Project Business Model a highly participative and visual way of creating the understanding of the project results and effects. 

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Earlier in the Project Business Model series of posts:

1. The Project Business Model

2. The Project Business Model Profile

3. The Project Business Model Results

4. The Project Business Model Timeline

5. The Project Business Model Sprintlines

Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts

The Project Business Sprintlines

This post is the fifth in a series of ten about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with.

The Project Business Model Sprintlines

When we plan and execute our changes we may end up on levels where people aren’t perhaps used to or see the benefit from working with scrum and agile techniques. On other areas of the solution space (primarily software development) people are used to these agile techniques and practice them with great satisfaction. Our work then is to merge the views of all these people into a planning instrument that can cater for all their ways, so we can have the best from them all.

One way of solving this problem is to pull it together in “sprintlines”. In this case we have within each grey box a planning area containing a first cut product backlog from which each team would create their sprints. We use the word sprintline to refer to the horizontal lines as we have found it easier to connect the detailed planning with higher order planning in this way.

When you plan the project sprintlines, do so in a workshop format. Give everyone a set of cards that they can outline their own view of the work on, then merge all cards on a wall sized card. After the merge the group can prioritize using dots or any other marker on the wall sized card. If possible use rules of thumb from scrum and other methods to correctly size and match the work. Refine the work on scrum boards and whatever other tools are necessary just be sure to aggregate it up to the programme and portfolio levels so we can have an investment view on it all.

This is as all the work in The Project Business Model a highly participative and visual way of creating the understanding of the project results and effects. 

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Earlier in the Project Business Model series of posts:

1. The Project Business Model

2. The Project Business Model Profile

3. The Project Business Model Results

4. The Project Business Model Timeline

Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

6. The Project Business Model SWOT

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts

We Ride

It is on rare occasions that we get to see such a strong recollection of the history of an entire industry. Any architect with some experience and insight can learn a lot more by studying this movie than reading books about enterprise architecture.

The Project Business Model Timeline

This post is the fourth in a series of ten about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with.

The Project Business Model Timeline

The cue here is that value rises to the top and is released through the yellow date bubbles. If you work in an environment where the appetite for release is higher, then you could add smaller grey/red date bubbles. These grey/red bubbles would contain the outcomes of each sprint as it is related to a result, shown here as red rectangles. (More on sprints in the next post)

When you plan the project timelines work with the result card you created earlier and try to capture the essential release dates from a business perspective. Do the job in a workshop format. Give everyone all the cards created so far and a set of empty timeline cards that they can outline their own view of the projects on, then merge all cards on a wall sized card. After the merge the group can prioritize using dots or any other marker on the wall sized card.

This is as all the work in The Project Business Model a highly participative and visual way of creating the understanding of the project results and effects. 

______________________

Earlier in the Project Business Model series of posts:

1. The Project Business Model

2. The Project Business Model Profile

3. The Project Business Model Results

Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

5. The Project Business Model Sprintlines

6. The Project Business Model SWOT

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts

The Project Business Model Results

This post is the third in a series of ten about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with.

The Project Business Model Results

A value proposition is a promise about value. We care a lot about our promises so we start our project design with focus on understanding the customers effect and then we craft the results the project should generate to help the customer reach the effects.

The effects puts a focus on the customer perspective through understanding what effects (monetary and non-monetary) the project will deliver against and when.

The results puts a focus on the supplier perspective through understanding what results (product, service, services) the project will create to deliver against the specified effects.

When you plan the project effects and results, do so in a workshop format. Give everyone a set of cards that they can outline their own view of the projects on, then merge all cards on a wall sized card. After the merge the group can prioritize using dots or any other marker on the wall sized card.

This is as all the work in The Project Business Model a highly participative and visual way of creating the understanding of the project results and effects. 

______________________

Earlier in the Project Business Model series of posts:

1. The Project Business Model

2. The project Business Model Profile

Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

4. The Project Business Model Timeline

5. The Project Business Model Sprintlines

6. The Project Business Model SWOT

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts

The Project Business Model Profile

This post is the second in a series of ten about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with.

The Project Business Model Profile

The focus on this is to add or remove any dimension that the people designing the project would want to profile it on. The classic way of doing project profiling is to use the Time, Cost and Quality dimensions, we like it to be a bit more flexible and so we allow people to choose dimensions as they see fit. In the sample below adding the risk dimension enables organisations governing on risk as the major dimension to express that in their project profiles. Likewise adding the capability dimension enables organisations to have the project focus on knowledge transfer.

In this sample there is only one project. If you are planning a multi project programme then you’d see shared dimensions and weights on the relations. Having the weights on the relations increases the likelihood of fantastic insights into the portfolio of projects.

When you plan the project profile, do so in a workshop format. Give everyone a set of cards that they can outline their own view of the projects on, then merge all cards on a wall sized card. After the merge the group can prioritize using dots or any other marker on the wall sized card.

______________________

Earlier in the Project Business Model series of posts:

1. The Project Business Model

Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

3. The Project Business Model Results

4. The Project Business Model Timeline

5. The Project Business Model Sprintlines

6. The Project Business Model SWOT

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts

The Project Business Model

This post is about real life experiences of using business model thinking as a foundation for planning and delivering change. The collection of these experiences have been a long slow journey started out in the early 90′s, experimenting with creating small businesses. During the last six years experiences from the field and theory has accelerated in an exponential way. I’ve personally had the opportunity to create and run master courses on the topic of business models in the context of Enterprise Architecture. As a way of fleshing out the practical work experienced during actual projects these courses has proven invaluable.

Writing this post I’ve had the help of a true friend and admirable colleague (Eva Kammerfors) whom I’ve shared many of the referred to business model experiences with. We started out these set of posts as a draft for a book, we shall see if the book will be published or if these posts will be sufficient.

The Project Business Model Foundation

A project is a delivery format for change acceleration and gives people and organizations possibilities to focus on a specific result with a specific timeline and dedicated resources. However, we have during the years found that projects often are “over-organized” in terms of action plans, WBSs’, reporting structures and so much focuses on the solution instead of the actual result. The key to success as we believe is to actually use the same design pattern as we do when we design companies and organizations, namely the Business Model Canvas. With this approach, we ensure that we know what we are doing when we decide to perform a change in project delivery format, we will ensure we get the right people on board and – last but not least – we know that we are delivering VALUE to our customers, not only (technical) solutions.”

The Project Business Model Canvas

By utilizing a project centric business model we can assure that we capture and communicate the basic building blocks of the project. In any given situation it is common to work iteratively across all the dimensions of the PBM (Project Business Model). Given that we know who wants us to investigate their possibilities and formulate a change project for it, we start with an interview investigating the effects that the change will deliver. From knowing what major outcomes are expected by the initiator we can start investigating all the other perspectives.

Perspectives with some sample questions.

Key Partners: Who are involved in the project?

Key Activities: What key activities do we need to ensure?

Key Resources: What resources do we need to plan, build and run?

Value Proposition: What results will this project deliver and when are they expected to be released?

Effects: What effects in monetary and non monetary terms do we expect the project to deliver and when?

Stakeholder Relationships: How will we engage with our stakeholder segments?

Channels: Who and where will we deliver the results of the project?

Stakeholder Segments: Who will benefit or not from this project?

Cost Structure: What costs does the project incur?

Revenue Streams: What revenues do we expect the project to tap into for financing?

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Next in the Project Business Model series of posts:

2. The Project Business Model Profile

3. The Project Business Model Results

4. The Project Business Model Timeline

5. The Project Business Model Sprintlines

6. The Project Business Model SWOT

7. The Project Business Model Blue Ocean Strategy

8. The Project Business Model Principles

9. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Groups

10. The Project Business Model Stakeholder Impacts