Abstract

Starting from a desired objective (such as the successful implementation of a well-designed Web app), it can be very informative to assess factors influencing the pursuit of this objective. One way to do it is the analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of implementation variants, which supports a more structured way of comparing variants, and can be a starting point for choosing the best one.

Structured Analysis

• Web app planning is a technical task
• Technical problems can be solved in a variety of ways
• Comparing different solutions can be complicated
  • even if there is only one solution, understanding it can be hard
• How to describe an objective in a structured way
• How to describe proposals in comparable ways
• How to identify important project issues

SWOT Matrix

Decision-Making and Planning

• SWOT describes an objective in different perspectives
• Strategic decisions can be based on these perspectives
• Additionally, the analysis can be used as a starting point
  • how can we use Strengths?
  • how can we stop Weaknesses?
  • how can we exploit Opportunities?
  • how can we defend Threats?
• Given a variety of alternative objectives
  1. analyze each of them according to their SWOT matrix
  2. select the best one according to some interpretation
  3. use the best one's matrix to create a project plan
  4. SWOT can be nested and used to plan sub-projects

Enhanced SWOT

Helpful and Internal

• Existing resources that can be used
• Experts in certain fields
• Creative capabilities to create innovative solutions
• Experience in similar projects
• Alignment with long-term strategy
• Clearly identified problem, solutions, and stakeholders

Newspaper Front Pages

• Web app design skills (versatile back-end)
• UI and UX skills (multiple interfaces)
• NLP skills (extracting additional metadata)
• Cooperation with the Internet archive (image storage)

Harmful and Internal

• Lack of resources (short-term or long-term)
• No previous experience in the area
• Not well-aligned with the long-term strategy
• Lack of stakeholders (who are interested and responsible)
• Competing with similar in-house project
• Association with failed previous projects

Newspaper Front Pages

• High network and server load can become problematic
• App monitoring and management can become an issue

Helpful and External

• Differentiating factor with competitors
• General move of the markets in this direction
• Easy integration with related products/solutions
• Regarded as must have on high-level check lists

Newspaper Front Pages

• Nice mix of information and art (mix with other ISchool apps)
• Attract students to projects that build stuff
• Start building an infrastructure of services

Harmful and External

• Market changes (economic valuation)
• Copyright and licensing issues
• Dependencies on other services/companies
• Technological changes
• Changes in the landscape (devices, customers, players)

Newspaper Front Pages

• No official feed of images (screen scraping)
• Licensing issues with the individual pages
• No back-up channel when feed fails/stops

SWOT Problems

• No focus on long-term strategic goals
• Little focus on ROI (life after reaching the objective)
• Comparing SWOT analyses can be hard (no metrics)

SWOT Essentials

• SWOT always needs a well-defined objective
• SWOT analyses are highly subjective
• Structuring tools can be used as personal tools