Strategy & Planning
SWOT Analysis
Collect strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, rate their weight, and turn them into strategies.
- Time: 45 to 90 min
- With: A strategy team or workshop group
- You get: A SWOT with ratings and four to six strategic moves
How to use this worksheet
- Define the scope: a company, a product, a project or a team. A SWOT without scope turns vague.
- Collect strengths and weaknesses (internal) and opportunities and threats (external). Rate each from 1 to 5 by importance.
- Keep only the points that matter: three to six per quadrant is usually enough.
- Use the strategy step to combine quadrants into actions: SO uses strengths for opportunities, WO fixes weaknesses to capture opportunities, ST uses strengths against threats, WT limits weaknesses against threats.
SWOT
Add points and rate their importance from 1 to 5.
Strengths
Internal, positive
Weaknesses
Internal, negative
Opportunities
External, positive
Threats
External, negative
Prompts
Ask yourself
- Strengths and weaknesses: compared to whom?
- Opportunities and threats: what is changing outside the organisation?
- Which points are facts, which are opinions?
Which strengths can capture which opportunities?
Prompts and example
Example
Use our niche brand to win the partner channel in the new region.
Which weaknesses stand between you and an opportunity?
Prompts and example
Example
Move to two-week releases so we can ship regulation-driven features in time.
How do your strengths reduce the impact of threats?
Prompts and example
Example
Use our support quality to lock in key accounts with multi-year deals.
Where are you most exposed, and how do you protect yourself?
Prompts and example
Example
Reduce dependence on the largest client below 30 percent of revenue within 18 months.
SWOT overview
Before you finish
- Each quadrant has the few points that really matter, not everything.
- Internal and external factors are not mixed.
- Every strategy points to a concrete action with an owner.
About SWOT
SWOT is a widely used tool for situation analysis, often credited to Albert Humphrey at Stanford in the 1960s. The TOWS matrix, proposed by Heinz Weihrich, turns the four lists into strategies.
A SWOT is only as good as the discussion around it. Ask for evidence, rate importance, and finish with actions.
Recommended reading
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- Good Strategy Bad StrategyRichard Rumelt
Why most strategy is fluff and how to build a real one — sharpens the thinking a SWOT is meant to feed.
- Competitive StrategyMichael E. Porter
The classic framework for analysing industry forces behind strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Playing to WinA.G. Lafley & Roger Martin
A practical cascade of strategic choices that turns analysis into where-to-play / how-to-win decisions.