Site Analysis - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 62

FIGURE 4-3. Information developed from the SWOT-C process will directly contribute to refining prelimi-
nary project goals, leading to development of project requirements
Interpreting and Analyzing Site Data
Often, we have seen situations in which, despite site conditions that we considered obvious, proj-
ect teams have failed in project implementation because of a misdiagnosis of the site conditions.
Upon further checking, we have found that the data were indeed collected and analyzed. How-
ever, the way the data were interpreted led to a series of restoration strategies that later proved
ineffective. Given this, how can we ensure that we properly interpret the factors we uncover in our
data collection process?
Using a site analysis process ensures the collection of relevant data, which can then be arranged
into five broad categories for interpretation and analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
threats, and constraints (SWOT-C). The SWOT-C tool is adapted from Philip Kotler's (1999) work
on examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in business competitive analysis.
The SWOT-C analysis offers the restoration practitioner an effective framework for organizing
data collection and the synthesis process (fig. 4-3). Organizing your data collection into such cat-
egories creates the basis for a systematic approach to the analysis.
After the collection of the data has been completed, it is time to put the various pieces of
information into a format from which you can develop a plan for your restoration project. The
SWOT-C process identifies issues that you must address when developing your restoration project.