This activity is suitable for use in courses where you are either forming long-duration teams (e.g., first-year cornerstone projects, term-long projects, year-long capstone) or preparing students for such long-duration teaming activities.

ONU Course Information: 

• This exercise is used in our third-year Project Development course that prepares students to succeed in our year-long senior Capstone course sequence.
• All three programs within our department (computer engineering, computer science, and electrical engineering) require the Project Development course as a prerequisite for their year-long Capstone (AKA Senior Design) experience.
• We are currently running two sections of Project Development, with sections for 20 to 30 students at most.
• In this course, students are formed into teams of four to five students due to the room's configuration: six tables containing six seats each, each with its own display monitor that can be used in either instructor or group work mode, facilitating small group discussions. This easily allows small group assignments such as this one to be provided as an in-class activity.

SWOT Analysis Assignment 

One of the resources I found online when creating this assignment was the following eBook, "3 Positive Leadership Exercises":

https://pro.positivepsychology.com/opt-in/3-free-positive-leadership-tools/

The PDF of this eBook is attached as a Resource to this Card.

The first of the book's three exercises is a "Team SWOT Analysis" tool (pages 4-14) that provides a six-step process for conducting the analysis. While designed for leaders to learn more about their teams, it is an effective tool for students to learn more about each other relative to a particular project. The eBook includes editable fields for answering questions regarding the four SWOT areas. As the eBook's copyright statement includes the following, "Permission is not required for personal or professional use, such as in a coaching or classroom setting," this resource is freely available for educational activities.

This resource starts out (pages 4-5) with a cursory overview of what a SWOT analysis is and advice for its use. I would not rely on this material to convey the concept; instead, the included slides provide sufficient coverage. For those wanting more in-depth coverage on SWOT, please refer to the links within the "Instructor Tips" section. Pages 6-12 contain the six-step exercise:

• The instructor handles Step 1 (Define your team and its objectives) by forming teams and presenting the project.
• Step 2 (Conduct a team SWOT analysis) is best performed individually as a variation of a think-pair-share process, but it can also be done collectively. This step contains a set of guided questions for each of the four SWOT areas.
• In Step 3 (Analyze and prioritize), the team needs to compare and discuss their responses. The results of this discussion are captured in the Team SWOT Analysis template (page 13).
• Step 4 (Identify actionable strategies) is an ideation session to determine how the team can best approach the proposed project. The results of this ideation are captured in the SWOT Actionable Strategies template (page 14).
• Step 5 (Create an action plan) is not critical for this assignment, as we have not yet discussed setting project goals, establishing timelines, etc., in our course.
• Step 6 (Reflection) can be used as a separate, individual activity.

Each team is asked to submit their completed Team SWOT Analysis (step 3) and SWOT Actionable Strategies (step 4) templates.

Optionally, each student can be asked to submit their individual Reflection piece (step 6).

Provided Project

The "Toasteroid" was pitched in 2016 as the first app-controlled smart image toaster, where the device could burn dynamically created pixelated images into a piece of toast. The project was offered on both the Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdsource funding websites, obtaining a total of nearly $390,000 between the two platforms. Although successfully funded, the project failed to deliver a product to market, much to the consternation of over 4,000 backers, some of whom were very critical with their comments. When students review the project, one part of their task is to consider why this campaign failed, and how their team can approach it differently.

• Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-first-app-controlled-smart-image-toaste 
• Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/toasteroid-app-controlled-smart-image-toaster 
• Article: https://uncrate.com/toasteroid-toaster/
• Article: https://www.designswan.com/archives/toasteroid-a-toaster-you-can-play-with.html 

Lecture Slides

The slide deck used in our "pre-capstone" course to cover the basics of SWOT analysis and introduce the "Toasteroid" project is included in the Resources section.

A SWOT analysis allows a team to measure their ability to successfully work on a particular project. SWOT analysis benefits teams by helping them recognize their:

• S = Strengths What internal qualities give your team a competitive advantage?
• W = Weaknesses What internal weaknesses leave your team vulnerable to threats, loss or failure?
• O = Opportunities What external conditions can result in growth for your team?
• T = Threats What external conditions could threaten your team’s success and growth?
  

Teams benefit from SWOT analysis as they collaborate throughout the process, with members learning about their respective strengths and weaknesses regarding various project-related tasks through employing honest, effective communication. But for a SWOT analysis to work, there needs to be a project for the team to discuss. And what if it's a brand-new team that does not yet have a project? Then let's give them one... perhaps one that was NOT successful.

Enter Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other project crowdfunding sites. There are thousands of design projects available in the form of an electronic sales pitch, sometimes complete with media kits, trying to make a case for funding. While many do not meet their fundraising goal, others do, but then fail in other ways, leaving a trail of disgruntled investors and interesting on-site commentary.

Reviewing a failed project allows students to learn from someone else's failure by discussing the risk(s) that the original developers either did not see, did not take seriously enough, or planned for insufficiently. Based on that analysis, teams can better plan and strategize for success, as:

• Identifying a team’s strengths helps it to focus on growth and remain competitive.
• Identifying weaknesses helps teams to improve processes and operations, cut costs, and create strategic contingency plans. 
• Understanding a team’s opportunities and risks (i.e., threats) promotes strategic development based on its strengths and weaknesses.
• Applying curiosity by considering why the project failed can lead to unexpected value-creation opportunities that were missed by the original development team.

IMPLEMENTATION

• The concept of SWOT analysis and its use is introduced in the lecture.
• Since this course is a precursor to our year-long capstone, a project pitch video ("Toasteroid" - provided in the Resources section) is shown in class so that discussions can be held in context. This part is vital, as each student needs to compare their skill set against something tangible to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
• The Toasteroid project works in our course as we have students from three degree programs—computer engineering, computer science, and electrical engineering—taking this course. Each small group is deliberately constructed so that there is at least one student from each discipline on each team. 
• Due to the length of the accompanying lecture, each team was asked to meet outside of class to work on this exercise so that they would not feel rushed by the constraints of class time. However, as this exercise can be completed within 30-40 minutes, it can be conducted in class if so desired.