Step 3: Understand your context

Your context - or your operating environment - can help or hamper your project.

Context is comprised of the institutions, knowledge, values and technology which influence your project.

Your internal (organizational) context: How does the project fit your institutional set-up, your capacities, your values and your knowledge-base?
Your external context: How does the project fit the institutional set-up of your surroundings, the capacities of the end-users, the values in society and in the region, and the existing infrastructure and new technologies on the market?

You can increase your chances of success by identifying opportunities and obstacles in your context and adapting your project or its context to make them fit each other better.

Key Instructions:

1. Identify key features of your own project's context.

2. Assess which ones are opportunities or obstacles for your project (Tools: Opportunities and Obstacles in your context).

3. Use the information you gained to fine-tune your project plans:

does your project fit its context?
can you improve your project to make it fit better?
can you shape your context so that it becomes more supportive of your project?

3. Save the information you gained and use it to select and adapt your instruments (see Step 7).

4. Keep track of core context issues throughout your project in case they change.