Care and Feeding of your SWOT

A SWOT analysis can take many forms. A simple SWOT analysis might be a simple grid with four boxes into which the strategic planners will record the organizations' Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This can provide a planning team with a framework to facilitate gathering their impressions and viewpoints on these areas. The SWOT is an activity best accomplished PRIOR to establishment of Objectives and Strategies, so that the results of the SWOT can be taken into account when creating a vision for the organization's future.

The dilemma with using a SWOT in this fashion is that although it can be quick and easy and provides a framework for discussion, it is shallow and may serve to perpetuate organizational myths and assumptions which may themselves be a threat.

A principle of strategic planning is that the process should serve to get people to question assumptions, to broaden their vision and to think outside of the box. If the SWOT is a casual endeavour, then the team does not benefit from new information.

There are several tools which can be used to gather information in advance of the facilitated strategic planning session in order to bring new information that may shock and surprise planners out of complacency. The number of tools and the depth to which they are applied is best decided by the planning team and will depend on time and budget constraints as well as the organizations' overall commitment to the strategic planning process.

Many organizations use these tools as stand-alone tools to gauge market competition, trends and strategic opportunities. When they are used in the context of strategic planning, there is a holistic benefit in that the planning team can benefit from understanding trends and information from many areas of the internal and external operations of the organization.

There are many tools available to strategic planners, many of which are listed below (December 29, 2009 post). Strategic planners often list SWOT as a tool along with the others, but our idea is that SWOT is a framework in which to organize the inputs of the other tools, such that an environment for educated thinking is created.

In general, the tools can be separated into internal and external analysis tools. Similarly, the Strengths and Weaknesses blocks of the SWOT are often considered to be internal and the Opportunities and Threats quadrants are considered external. This distinction can be useful in determining which tools will populate which quadrants of the SWOT analysis.

Existing Conditions: Internal/External

Metrics: profit, sales, retention, staff attitudes

Porters' Five Forces

Benchmarks and benchmark trends

Balanced Scorecard

STEEP, PESTLE, TOWS

Surveys: staff, management, customers, suppliers, competition, channel partners

Six More Barriers to Strategic Plan Execution

The next list from HBR is the six mistakes that can derail your attempts to change. Thanks to Reynolds Consulting for this (and their comments embedded.)

1. Cautious management culture. In my work I have found that the vast majority of things that hold companies back from change is their current business model and belief systems–internal factors within their control. You can change if you want to.
2. Business as ususal process management. If business is at full capacity where do you find the resource to change? Start a stop doing list and keep track of all the things you do that don’t add value–keep it posted and add to it regularly and watch it grow! That alone is a great source of opportunity to re-allocate old to the new!
3. Initiative Gridlock. It is important to identify how many initiatives you can reasonably do with your resources and do a few really well then a whole bunch marginally.
4. Recalcitrant Executives. Nooo! Nobody we know has that problem, right? I have often said if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem. Executives have to manage that aggressively. It is their job to run interference for the people in the organization that have to get the job done so all can be held accountable.
5. Disengaged Employees: Ditto above except…it is really important to ensure they understand what is expected of them, get the chance to have early wins and feel they are doing valuable work. When that happens disengaged employees are rare.
6. Loss of focus during execution. Communication is a tool that can never be underestimated. It is often stated that it takes at least 7 times before someone really hears a message. Executives often think they have communicated until they are blue in the face–but you cannot overcommunicate—keep the end game visible, make the steps clear, help people focus on the current one, make successes important, and keep the conversation lively!