Opportunity management
TAP University's blog[8] notes that this is a positive risk or opportunity and needs to be managed to ensure a good result.
Having a clear understanding of all risks allows an organization to measure and prioritize them and take the appropriate actions to reduce losses.
An opportunity management process has required elements that need to be evaluated before advancing and allocating scarce resources to any project.
The first step that an organisation should take in order to improve decision making and reduce risk is identifying potential opportunities.
Organisations could implement processes like "organizational catch ball" which would help them to develop plans and strategies for economic growth in the community.
As Conti notes, "the interactive catch ball process from management level to the next is necessary for correct planning and alignment of goals".
The challenges for the business and project management team is to make choices and decisions that move toward the desired objectives – a task that is made difficult by change.
The stage-gate process was created because the traditional organisational structure is primarily for top-down, centralized control and communications, all of which are not practical for organizations that use project management and horizontal workflow.
Phase–gate systems divide the innovation process into a predetermined set of stages composed of a group of "prescribed, related, and often parallel activities."
The body of research collected for proposed initiatives should be frequently consulted to adequately support the decision-making processes.
It is imperative that evaluation of each gate should be objective, open-minded, clear on the businesses' strategic goals and done by experienced people.
[23] Philosopher Immanuel Kant's aesthetic theory also offers insight into opportunity management as it makes the connection between the imaginative (open end of the funnel) and understanding (application of deliberative thought and criteria).
Kant states: "For, in lawless freedom, imagination, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense; the power of judgement, on the other hand, is the faculty that makes it consonant with understanding.
It introduces a clearness and order into the plenitude of thought, and in so doing, gives stability to the ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent and universal approval.
Some individuals and organisations have become so used to thinking of risk management solely in terms of the negative outcomes of uncertainty that they recoil from using the same process to address opportunities.
(2) Since there may be original nonsense, its products must at the same time be models, i.e., be exemplary; and consequently, though not themselves derived from imitation, they must serve that purpose for others, i.e., as a standard or rule of estimating.
Hence, where an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know how the ideas for it have entered into his head, nor has he the power to invent like at pleasure, or methodologically, and communicate the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to produce similar products... (4) Nature prescribes the rule through genius not to science but to art, and this also only in so far as it is to be fine art.
"[26] American philosopher Charles S. Peirce notes that new knowledge originates outside of the traditional logic of induction and deduction.
"[27] Opportunity management entails ongoing assessment of the decision-making process increasing the likelihood of success.
Roger Martin asserts that Pierce's notion of abduction is the basis of what he terms "Design Thinking" which is at the core of "the most powerful formula for competitive advantage in the twenty-first century.
"[30] Project management is the planning, organizing and controlling of a firm's resources to achieve reasonably short-term goals that have been established to complete specific targets and objectives.
This can lead to negative phenomena such as target fixation[33] Opportunity management may aid in defining the business needs/requirements of the organization through the filtration of various alternatives and budgeting requirements.
Although the payback period is defined by Kerzner as the least precise of all capital budgeting methods because the calculations are in dollars and cannot adjusted for the time value of money.
[36] The monitoring and control phase of project management mirrors fairly closely stage gate decision making, although stage gate decision making addresses potential problems earlier in the project management cycle.
Capacity building may be defined as anything that increases the ability and/or desire of groups, businesses, municipalities, not-for-profit organizations to effectively engage in community economic development.
[41] Capacity building is an approach to economic development that focuses on understanding the difficulties that prevent people, governments, organizations form recognizing their developmental goals while enhancing the abilities that will allow them to achieve measurable and sustainable results.
Put simply, capacity building is any initiative that increases the desire or ability of individuals, groups and organisations to effectively participate in economic development activities.
[43] Community capacity building assists groups by enhancing skills essential to regional economic planning, development and implementation.
[45] In examining community capacity building and local economic development, it is essential to recognise the importance of building links between social economy organisations and the private sector as well as governments in order to address the complex social and economic problems which all communities confront.
[41] Along with "empowerment, "participation", and "gender equality", capacity building is seen as an essential element if development is to be sustainable and centered in people.
