Previously, we thought about digital delivery and how to get things done to deliver your project in your organization. Now I want to introduce a couple of useful frameworks that will help you think strategically about the world around you, and how any digital products you develop fit within that. Understanding the wider context in which your digital work sits is vitally important. As we've already heard, it's not just about your idea, but the whole system and the culture you operate in that defines digital adoption. It's a complex mix of people, culture, organization, and yes, technology. The first framework I want to introduce you to, it's an old one, but it's a good one. The SWOT analysis. It's a simple tool that ask you to look in turn at your idea through four separate lenses, each one spelling out one letter of mnemonic. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, SWOT. So take your product or your idea you're developing, this is your thing. Now go through each of the four ideas in SWOT, and think about how it applies to your thing. First, strengths. What's your thing good at? What can it do that others can't do? What are the selling points that you can persuade others with? Next, weaknesses. So let's look from the other end of the spectrum. What doesn't your idea do? What are the potential risks of using it? An honest assessment of both is important. You need to see both the good and the bad of your product. That means you can accentuate the positive and mitigate the negative. These first two concepts are largely internally, intrinsically focused on your thing, your idea. The next you relate it to how your idea might fair in a competitive environment. So we have opportunities. This is about thinking, what space you have to operate within? What advantages do you have? What allies are there to support you? Then finally, we have threats. This is about what else is happening in the system. What barriers might there be to the adoption of your product. This might be competitors doing a similar thing, it might be cultural barriers as white people might not want to use it. So of those four ideas, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, this what's framework. It's as simple as that. It's structured thinking tool, nothing more, nothing less. But it helps ask useful questions to make you look at your idea more clearly. Now on to the next framework. I promised not to drown you with too many frameworks with unpronounceable names over this course, but I think this one is worthwhile. This one allows you to look in a systematic way the situation you find yourself operating in. The letters here are PESTLE, P-E-S-T-L-E. You've guessed it. Each of those letters gives you the name of a lens to look at your problem with. This framework is particularly useful for looking at the wider macro environment that exists around you. Let's break it down piece by piece. First P, Political. This is about the political happenings the world around. It might be something big like Brexit or the internal politics of your organization. E is for Economic. This is about the economic and financial circumstances you find yourself in. Is there a lot of money or as is often the case, is there very little money? You need to demonstrate value for money or return on investment. Next comes S, Societal. Here we're thinking about what's going on in society and human life around us. This might be questions of acceptability or culture. With modern technology, the issue is less often the ability to use technology, but more whether people find it to be acceptable. Think Facebook data sharing and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now onto T for Technological. This is about the technology you are using and how it works in a wider technology landscape. Think about how it interacts with other technology, think standards, think of interoperability, that sort of thing. L it's for Legislative. This relates specifically to the legal system you're operating in. For digital, this might mean understanding your regulatory or information governance requirements. Does GDPR apply if you're in Europe, for example, or HIPAA if you're in the US. It's that sort of thing. Finally, E is for Environmental. Now this one's been added more recently, but it seems increasingly relevant. This is about thinking about the environmental and sustainability issues that exist in your world. So there are two frameworks. They don't give you all the answers, but they do give you a structured way to approach analyzing a product and the environment you're operating in. These are some of the core frameworks used in business strategy. Now there's plenty more to learn here about strategic thinking. If you're interested, you might want to read the words of Michael Porter or Mintzberg, or others. This would be the mainstay of a business degree or an MBA. I don't want to go into them here, but you'll find extra options in the reading material if you're interested in this thing. Finding a way to align these business frameworks with the traditional thinking of public health and evidence-based medicine is part of the magic, but also part of the mystery of digital health. You're going to need to think with more than one part of your brain at the same time. But that's digital health in a nutshell, bringing together health, business, technology thinking, all at the same time.
