Page 10 - Phase 1 - Understanding your organisations' entrepreneurial opportunities

Understanding Your School – Internal Analysis

Garage Team

The term Garage Team was made famous by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, who built
Hewlett-Packard’s first product, in a garage in 1938. It refers to the team made up of the
core people in a committee or working group. The team needs to be scalable and
multitasking to stay lean. Such simple structure reduces communication and report time and
ensures the team members share the same vision. On the contrary, a team with specialised,
unnecessarily complex structure could potentially make the team slow and reluctant
to respond to changes. The team members need to be self-motivating, who are naturally
enthusiastic and energetic about their jobs and are focused. The edupreneur should ensure
the team has plenty of opportunities to learn and grow. He/she should allow individuals

to focus on strengths instead of shortcomings.

Culture & Environment

A committee or working group needs to stay lean and fast to survive in a fast-pacing
environment. Everyone needs to be focused for the team to easily change course when
necessary. These elements need to be cultivated as part of the team's culture, and part of
its survival instinct. Within this culture, the edupreneur acts like the patriarch or matriarch
of a tribe, and the team is like an extended family. The team members will naturally create
a sense of shared destiny, where everyone feels responsible for one another. The ‘family’
members would naturally avoid mistakes or threaten the well-being of the 'family', which
leads to a protective, healthy culture among members of a team.

With limited resources, the middle management needs to control expenses by prioritising their
needs and spend only on the essential items. The middle management also needs to
explore potential resources, including workforce, knowledge and financial support,
e.g. Quality Education Fund (QEF) or bootstrap financing.

Management Tools

Management Tools refer to the tools that an edupreneur needs in turning an idea into
something real and tangible. Among various management tools, salesmanship and design
skills are particularly important.

Salesmanship is the critical skill that any edupreneur need. The edupreneurship needs to
sell its value to all stakeholders involved in the project, including its team members, to make
those parties support the idea. He/she needs to identify and focus on the key message and
pitch the concept using precise and straightforward language, aiming to make the stakeholders

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