Opportunities and obstacles in your context

forcefield.jpgYou may know your context well, or you may be working in an unfamiliar context.

Whichever the case, this tool helps you to identify what opportunities and obstacles your context presents to your project. You can use this information to adapt either your project or its context in order to improve your opportunities and reduce your obstacles.


 

 
What you need to do: 
  1. Identify key aspects of your context that can influence your project (positively or negatively) during its duration
  2. Assess whether they are opportunities or obstacles, and how important they are. You can use the forcefield analysis template below to organize and visualize your assessment.
  3. Use the information gained to think about and decide on:
    • what you could do to make your project fit its context better (increase the number/strength of opportunities and reduce the number/strength of obstacles) or
    • what you might do to make the context more 'friendly' to your project (e.g. offer training, find financial support).
When does it work?: 

If you are not very familiar with your context, you may need to do further research after your assessment. If the context is very dynamic, you might also need to reassess your opportunities and obstacles again as things change.

The assessment will help you focus your efforts on key aspects that need to be explored in more detail or monitored in case they change.

Template / Checklist:

Template for assessing opportunities and obstacles in your context (forcefield analysis)

application/msword iconforcefield-analysis.doc