The Organizational Chart

What are the departments/divisions/business units of the organization? How are they related to each other? How do the senior executives imagine the organizational chart will change in the coming years? In other words, how many resources does management plan to add or remove? How will departments be structured? Will reporting lines be different than they are today? An organizational chart is usually represented by a decomposition diagram (see Chapter 6).

Locations

How many physical locations are supported? How many are anticipated in the future? Will the current locations still be used? If new locations are to be added, where are they? How will they be acquired and set up? Locations can be cities, countries, and/or buildings. Locations are often represented on a map or geographic diagram.

Swot (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

SWOT analysis asks participants to list the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are identified for the organization itself. Opportunities and threats are identified for the outside environment in which the organization operates. These components help to clarify where the company should look for growth opportunities (e.g., areas where the organization has a strength and there is an external opportunity). For example, if a company strength is providing consulting services in the insurance industry and there is an opportunity to work in the banking area, the senior executives may decide to offer banking consulting services. SWOT analysis is done using a four-grid matrix. Figure 3.3 shows the format of a SWOT diagram.

Figure 3.3: SWOT Diagram

Products

This is a list of the current products and services offered by an organization. The list may include a description of each product, past sales volume, profit margins, etc. It is very useful to examine each product to determine if it is profitable or causing financial losses or if it is causing customer service problems or negatively impacting shipments of other products. Understanding which products are the true winners for an organization is critical. When working on projects to support and enhance these key products, team members know the importance of their work. Some products are “loss leaders.” They are offered to get people into the store because of their low price and act as enticements to encourage customers to buy other products. Spending a lot of time and money enhancing these products may not be a good use of limited resources.

Information Architecture

Information or data is a very valuable asset of every organization. Over time, an organization collects billions of pieces of information about customers, vendors/suppliers, products/services, expenses, etc. The value of the information is directly related to how quickly a particular piece of data can be retrieved when needed. An information architecture is a plan for where the organization will store information so that it is safe, secure, and easily accessible. As you work on a project, you should always be aware of the data used by the project and where it belongs in the enterprise information architecture plan. The plan may not be fully implemented, but each project should work toward its fulfillment.