Mastering SWOT – a Methodical Approach

I teach and facilitate SWOT a unique way.? I have seen typical SWOT quadrants and find them unfulfilling.? The quadrant doesn’t provide a methodical way to analyze and often groups assume that every strength is good, every weakness is bad, every opportunity should be chased, and every threat concerning.? That just isn’t the case.

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) enables an effective assessment of where you are today.? It helps you to assess your internal capabilities (Strengths and Weaknesses) against the external world (Opportunities and Threats).? I use it inStrategic Planning, Product Strategy, Problem-Solving, and other situations where understanding current capabilities is needed.

Do the SWOT Analysis as follows:

• Build four separate lists: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats – describe each one clearly (Strengths and Weaknesses are looking internally – Opportunities and Threats are looking externally).?
• Discuss and condense each list to 5 to 12 list items. ?Note: Avoid going over 12.
• Build a SWOT Master Matrix (spreadsheet) – Opportunities and Threats on top with Strengths and Weaknesses down the left side.?
• Provide each person involved with their individual copy of the SWOT Matrix and instruct them how to score the matrix: each person gets 9 points (if asked, “Why 9 points?”, there is a psychological reason, but just say, “Because Gary said so.”) per column (Opportunity and Threat).? Score one column at a time, spreading the 9 points by asking yourself, “How much impact does this Strength have on being able to advantage of this Opportunity? How much impact does this Strength have in defending against this Threat?”? Then ask, “How much does this Weakness impede success with this Opportunity?? How much does this Weakness make us vulnerable to this Threat?”? The higher the impact, the higher the number.? Note: Don’t spread the numbers evenly – it must be based on business understanding.?
• When complete, each person contributes his or her scores to the SWOT Master Matrix and all the scores within each cell are added to calculate a total combined score for each cell.?
• Calculate the totals for each row and each column documenting the totals on the SWOT Master Matrix.? Each column must add up to 9 times the number of people scoring.? Each row will be different.

Review the SWOT Master Matrix scores with those participating and circle the cells with the highest scores.? Then discuss which actions to take, based on the results from the analysis.? This helps identify which Strengths to leverage, which Weaknesses to correct, which Opportunities to go after, and which Threats to be defended.

Helpful Hints

The following questions will help when analyzing the SWOT Matrix.? They are:

• Does the business have any internal strength or core competency that an attractive strategy can be built around?
• Do the business weaknesses make it competitively vulnerable and/or do they disqualify the business from pursuing certain opportunities?? Which weaknesses do the strategies need to correct?
• Which opportunities does the business have the skills and resources to pursue with a real chance of success? (Remember: opportunity without the means to capture it is an illusion.)
• Which threats should worry the business most, and what strategic moves should they consider in crafting a good defense?

I have found that this methodical approach of analyzing SWOT to far more valuable than the typical quadrant approach and generally find numerous ‘aha’s.? This effort takes about 3 hours to do with a group of people, but it’s well worth it.

How do you use SWOT?

What do you think of this approach?

?