• The value chain. For example, if customers’ tastes change and what was previously valued is no longer appreciated, then the company will have to establish a project to find and implement new ways of adding value.

　　Of course, all of the results from these frameworks can be summarised in a SWOT analysis.

　　It can also be useful to classify potential improvements as arising from:

　　• doing new things – for example, expanding into new overseas markets

　　• doing existing things better – for example, generating market growth

　　• stop doing things – for example, closing down part of the company’s operations.

　　Identification of the organisation’s stakeholders and how they are affected

　　It is important that this step is carried out early in a project’s life. It was stated above that projects should be undertaken if they are expected to bring benefits to the organisation. However, that is a considerable simplification because it regards the organisation and its purposes as consisting of a set of homogeneous interests. In reality, many stakeholders are involved and their requirements and preferences are likely to be diverse.

　　Any given project is likely to have implications that benefit some stakeholders, do not affect others, and which bring disbenefits to the remainder. For example, if a bank is considering closing its branch network and operating only over the internet, then its premises costs will decrease (a benefit), but customers might be alienated (a disbenefit). The hospital example mentioned above could mean that resources are switched from one group of patients to another as a result of political pressure.

　　Organisations cannot always choose simply to enjoy the benefits of any change while disregarding disbenefits; benefits and disbenefits usually come as a package. So, when it comes to identifying and classifying benefits and disbenefits (see below), it is important that organisations carefully identify all affected stakeholders so that they will have a greater chance of evaluating all the potential effects of a project. They must also assess the power and influence of the stakeholders because powerful, motivated, disgruntled stakeholders can cause projects to fail.