Monthly Archives: September 2015

Strengths and Weaknesses

Most people are familiar with the SWOT analysis, even if familiarity causes us to run a mile from it! SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and the idea is we brainstorm them in turn.  It is best to work through in that order, starting with the positives.

SWOT works just as well if you attempt it on your own although there are advantages to working in groups because more insights are likely to be shared and the outcomes are more likely to be owned by an organisation that has shared its analysis.

What tends not to happen is the analysis part of SWOT analysis. Having brainstormed each of the four lists, it’s easy to move onto the next thing without asking questions like, how do we:

  • build on our strengths?
  • address our weaknesses?
  • take advantage of the opportunities?
  • mitigate the threats?

Note the first two are internal questions and so it is usually possible to discuss them within the organisation. The second two may depend on things outside your organisation’s immediate control. Some action might help you take advantage of an opportunity but you don’t have control.

The circuit questionnaire asks for strengths and weaknesses. It’s worth adding opportunities and threats, to complete a SWOT analysis at this stage. You’ve made progress with an analysis of your brand in this element of the questionnaire and this is an opportunity to consider its implications.

PESTLE

Your situation will form your business and so it is worth considering things from outside your business. Thinking about opportunities and threats helps with that. PESTLE is a lesser known analysis sometimes used alongside SWOT. It is another set of six brainstorms. They don’t all apply to every business or organisation but it’s worth asking whether they do. PESTLE stands for

  • Political – implications of government policy for your business should include local government and European Union (if you live in a member state)
  • Economic – all aspects of economic trends including shares, austerity measures, money flow locally
  • Social – this can be immensely important when considering local markets
  • Technological (and/or Theological if you’re a faith group) – new technologies can have a major impact over a few short years. (Faith groups may need to be aware of new theological insights and trends in their traditions.)
  • Legal – changes in legislation that will impact on your business.
  • Environmental – particular issues in your area, eg flood plains as well as changes to environmental protection.

I find, as a lone worker, my strengths and weaknesses come out as about me. My personal strengths and weaknesses are the strengths and weaknesses of my business. This is one reason opportunities and threats are important because they encourage the sole trader to look beyond their own limitations. Mind mapping can be very helpful for the lone worker, using an online application such as Xmind.

I suppose larger businesses will tend to more impersonal results, although it may be helpful to record personal strengths and weaknesses somewhere. Appraisal systems can be one way of doing this.

Ultimately, it’s worth attempting a SWOT analysis at this stage but be aware of its limitations. It is a small part of the circuit questionnaire and the other questions can lead us to a deeper analysis.

How to Save Our Town Centres

They used to say the story of Sheffield was a tale of two cities. The old city centre was bombed during the Second World War. I can remember travelling by bus as a child into the centre and passing bomb sites. I didn’t know they were bomb sites at the time. A comedian once said the residents of Sheffield quite liked the bombed look and so modelled their city on it!

One day during the 1960s, my parents took me to the Central Library to see a model of the plans for the city centre. This was the famous “Hole in the Road”. I remember being particularly impressed by a ramp built into Cockaynes (which I thought had been there forever). It was to connect to subterranean passageways from the hole in the road (follow the link for archive photoes, scroll down for Castle Square with the hole and as it is now).

Using subways, bridges and pedestrianised streets you could walk from Moorfoot to the Castle Market without crossing a road. Sheffield was the cleanest industrial city in Europe and the greatest shopping centre outside London.

I moved away in the seventies and upon my return in 1989, the hole in the road was a shadow of its former grandeur. Sheffielders were once again enjoying empty spaces. They wrecked the centre by building Meadowhall, the biggest out-of-town shopping centre in the region, a couple of miles away.

A Tale of Three Cities!

Today it is a tale of three cities. The hole is long gone, the Supertram introduced in the early nineties and many sixties monuments replaced by millennium projects. The millennium projects have actually been quite successful and are more popular than many of the buildings they replaced.

However, as a retail centre Sheffield has not done so well. There have been several attempts to build a new shopping centre at Barkers Pool and a new proposal is under consideration at present. The Castle Market has moved to Moorfoot (so there’s no need to do the famous walk) and they’re building a new retail site nearby. But the Moor itself is a shadow of its former glory with most of the retail chains closing or moving to Meadowhall. Fargate, arguably, the main retail street, is a mess. It looks like someone emptied a back catalogue of street furniture onto one street and then paved it with Italianate cobbles that make walking along it an unpleasant experience.

How to Save Our Town Centres

I could write more about Sheffield’s centre (and possibly should) and it will be familiar to Julian Dobson who lives in the same city and is the author of “ How to Save Our Town Centres: A radical agenda for the future of high streets”.

The only thing I would take issue with is the book’s title that hardly does justice to its content. The implications of his argument would stretch far beyond town centres and are relevant to every neighbourhood.

I’ve covered ideas in this book previously in this blog. (He uses the term Agora and writes about the retail co-operative movement’s significance.) The writing is brilliant, a pleasure to read and I’m really jealous he has managed so much I’ve attempted to write about!

The book is not only a pleasure to read but also practical. There are many examples of projects all over the United Kingdom and indeed the world. Experiments are happening all over despite the lack of political support for change. Dobson includes practical suggestions for activists and legislators, should we ever manage to elect politicians who truly share our interests in a thriving national localised economy.

Of all the books I’ve reviewed so far (and I’ve reviewed some very good books) this is the one I most wholeheartedly recommend you read. I’ll write more about it over the next few Fridays.

Participative Methods 3: Open Space Technology

I first encountered Open Space Technology in the early 2000s through the Primary Care Trust in East Rotherham.  They introduced it as a method used for a couple of hours in a community setting.  I used it a few times, with various groups engaged with community planning.

Open Space Technology appealed to me because I knew about several other participative approaches.  Also, it worked well with local people.  As is often the case with participative methods, it is professionals who struggle with it!

Longer Conferences

Audience in rows with keynote speakers

Some conferences prefer keynote speakers!

Open Space Technology is effective for longer conferences: one day conferences work and apparently a 2 to 3 day residentials can be particularly effective.  I’ve found Open Space Technology more problematic over 24 hour sessions.  This may be accounted for by  audiences of professional people and maybe 24 hours is not long enough for the benefits to become clear.

With longer conferences, I learned a few hard truths.  Open Space Technology

 

  • is difficult to facilitate.  It can take up to 45 minutes to set up a session and this can be tedious,
  • really needs to be run with people who agree to take part in advance.  It is difficult to communicate the benefits and the spirit to an unprepared group.
  • is easily undermined by dominant people.  I remember one session where a senior person wouldn’t let me start a session after I’d set it up because he claimed everyone wanted to do a particular workshop.  He asked me to tell them all to do the workshop even though I was about to ask them to choose what they wanted to do!  I pointed out this contradiction to him afterwards and I think he saw it.
  • with short sessions it seems to work quite well but with a long session, it is perhaps best to go for 2 or 3 days.  One day produces useful and insightful information but does not allow time to move those taking part to action planning.  This has cost implications and some people find it hard to commit to 3 days without keynote speakers!
  • if you have resident experts, you should not use them as keynote speakers, they can offer workshops like everyone else!

Evaluation

I’ve found whilst people in neighbourhoods find Open Space Technology liberating, professional people with agendas find freedom to explore issues profoundly threatening.

Open Space Technology is a powerful method when people contract to use it in advance.  It is less effective with unprepared participants.  The challenge is to find contexts where it works well.

Perhaps my previous account of Open Space Technology is a little more optimistic about its use. The older post includes a link to a book about the method. For community organisations the practicalities of running very long sessions may be prohibitive. However, it can be used effectively in a couple of hours, particularly if participants are familiar with the approach.

Have you found participatory methods appeal more to local activists than they do to professionals?  Why do you think that is? Have you been able to use it for short sessions? For sessions covering a day or more?

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