A Brief User Guide To
The Creation And Use Of A SWOT Analysis
Rus Slater
WWW.coach-and-courses.com
How to use this book
Sorry to insult your intelligence by starting off with a “How to..” on something as simple as using a book, but not everyone has used an e-book before so there may well be some features that you are not familiar with.
Firstly it is best to use this book on-screen, you don’t have to be on-line as it is self-contained, but using it on-screen, rather than printing it off and using it like a traditional book, offers several advantages;
ü The bookmarks work
ü It saves paper
ü You won’t lose it
ü All the colour works rather than disappearing into greyscale
Bookmarks
There are “bookmarks” throughout the text, a bookmark appears in blue and is underlined;
This is an example bookmark.
When you put the cursor over a bookmark and left click it takes you to the relevant text. Do it with the example in the line above
Once you have used a bookmark it turns from blue underlined to purple underlined for the rest of that session.
SWOT Analysis-
a brief users guide to creating and using a SWOT Analysis
What it is and where it came from
Where/when it works well
How to turn SWOT into a plan
How to carry out a SWOT
Preparing to SWOT
Preparing to SWOT
Before you go too far….
Conducting a SWOT analysis before defining and agreeing upon an objective is almost always doomed to serious problems.
A SWOT analysis should not exist in the abstract, if it does it will produce no value but will have wasted time and will damage the credibility of the person who started/oversaw the process.
Also..
If the desired end state is not openly defined and agreed upon, the participants may have different end states in mind and the results will be ineffective.
Opportunities external to the subject are often confused with strengths internal to the subject. They should be kept separate.
SWOTs are sometimes erroneously viewed as an end in themselves. They are not. SWOTs are descriptions of conditions, and as such the critical thing is to go on to the next stage, which is to look at each description of a condition and ask “So what?” or “S’wot?”
The component parts of the SWOT are:
v Strengths: attributes of the organisation that are helpful to achieving the objective.
v Weaknesses: attributes of the organisation that are harmful to achieving the objective
v Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective
v Threats: external conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective
Getting together a SWOT Team
Ideally a cross-functional team or a task force that represents a broad range of perspectives, related to the objective, should carry out the SWOT analysis. For example, a SWOT team for the launch of a new service or product may include; a sales person, a product design or service delivery specialist, a manager who will be responsible for the product/service as part of his/her annual KPIs, and someone from the finance function who will pay/invoice for the product/service .
How to carry out a SWOT
1. Once you have got your team together and you have defined and agreed your objective you are ready to start SWOTting.
2. Traditionally people use a flipchart and divide it into four quadrants; this has advantages and disadvantages;
~On the plus side this neatly shows the whole thing on one page but;
~On the minus side it tends to constrain you to a relatively small space for each aspect; once you have filled that space folk want to move on to the next but you may not have a comprehensive analysis.
- Use four pages of A1, each marked with the title of a component of SWOT, each stuck to a different wall of your meeting room. Give each person a Post-it pad and ask him or her to complete one note for each item, putting them on the relevant page
4. Once you have exhausted your individual minds of ideas, examine each Post-it as a group.
5. Discuss each one, grouping similar/same points together and ensuring that everyone understands what the writer of each Post-it meant. Check that you have got them on the right page. Challenge what might be “glib” or “political” comments (almost every SWOT has, under “Strengths”, “Our reputation”….is our reputation a strength, really, or should we accept that it is actually a bit tarnished?
6. Discard any repetition Post-its
7. Once everyone is happy that you have assessed and analysed all contributions put all the pages on the same wall.
8. Take a moment to ask yourselves what we may have missed.
9. Agree who when and how you are going to complete your next step (this is turning the SWOT into a plan.)
10. Get it typed up before all the Post-its fall off!
.
How to turn SWOT into a plan
Identification of SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for achievement of the selected objective are to be derived from the SWOTs.
The people who are going to plan may or may not be the people who carried out the SWOT, this will depend on the circumstance and the style of your organisation.
1. The decision makers have to determine whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs.
If the objective is NOT attainable a different objective must be selected and the process started afresh
2. If, on the other hand, the objective seems attainable, then we must look at each individual SWOT condition and ask “S’Wot?” the SWOTs are used as inputs to the creative generation of possible strategies, by asking and answering each of the following four questions, many times:
~ S’wot can we do to Use each Strength to achieve our goal?
~ S’wot can we do to Stop each Weakness hindering our reaching our goal?
~ S’wot can we do to Exploit each Opportunity to move towards our goal?
~ S’wot can we do to Defend against each Threat that endangers our chances of achieving our goal?
We should question to five times depth……For example, if under Weaknesses we have listed,
“Lack of suitably skilled staff to achieve goal” we ask
“So What?” the answer will be
“We need to obtain such staff or skills” so we ask
“Can we train people in these skills in time?” the answer is
“Yes”, we ask,
“How much will that cost?” the answer is
“£X,000” so we ask
“Could we afford that?” the answer is
“Yes” so we aks
“Is it worth doing it in relation to the benefit?” the answer is
“Yes”
“S’wot..” will probably generate a number of options and from these we can either choose the course of action we will take and develop a direct SMART objective, or we might need to set an indirect SMART objective to consider the options and then decide on our course of action.
EG Direct SMART could be
“We will relocate the function to X, this will be completed by DD/MM/YYYY. It is the responsibility of the Z Team”
Or Indirect SMART
“Z team will assess the relative Cost/Benefits of either relocating or updating the function. They will present their recommendation to the Board on DD/MM/YYYY.
Using bookmarks