What Would A Consultant Of The Us Postal Service Suggest To Overcome The Challenges Of The Swot

Why SWOT sucks – and what to practise most it!

For a long time, SWOT – an acronym for "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats" – has been amidst the most popular strategic analysis tools that both managers and consultants use regularly. But if you lot ask me, a SWOT analysis all likewise often ends up being a waste of time and energy – and can do more impairment than good. For a niggling insight into the issues of the SWOT method, and my suggestion for a better alternative, read on!

"Let the states determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT!"

As a manager, consultant, or fifty-fifty equally an employee, whether at a meeting, in connection with a project, a strategy procedure, an assay, or something completely dissimilar, you lot have probably heard or uttered these words.

And information technology's nada to exist ashamed of. I am a steadfast supporter of models and figures that tin can help create simplified overviews of complex situations. Over the years I have assembled a large drove of so-called "consultant matrix" tools, nearly of which I frequently utilise in my work as an It consultant.

But I am reluctant to bring the SWOT tool into play. What's more, I frequently see how the tool's farthermost simplicity causes it to exist used incorrectly in various contexts, frequently to the detriment of the desired end issue. From my perspective, in that location are at least four problems with using SWOT as a strategic analysis tool:

1. SWOT involves freely brainstorming to create a list for each of the 4 categories – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – but information technology makes no provision for any adjacent steps. As a result, the exercise often becomes meaningless because no 1 knows what to practice once the lists take been created.

ii. The SWOT method can be applied to only about everything, and many forget to narrow their focus – to make the SWOT practise very specific to a given issue. When it is used too liberally or becomes the become-to solution, there is a loftier risk of information overload and the result is often nil but confusion.

3. Strategy processes and issues are frequently and so complex that their elements cannot be neatly listed in 1 of iv simplistic categories. Thus, SWOT should only exist used to generate input for a given process, and can never stand solitary every bit a starting betoken for making qualified decisions.

four. Different people run across different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for a given state of affairs, and therefore one can often end upward with as many contradicting opinions as there are participants. The model does not help to find common ground.

Improvements for your next SWOT

While information technology might seem rather extreme, my recommendation is that you completely end using SWOT and instead seek better alternatives. Simply if the temptation is still too dandy, here are a number of focus points that tin can assist to improve the quality of your SWOT sessions:

Narrow the focus of your SWOT to a single problem or a specific projection – and consider the session nothing more than a brainstorm (with all the strengths and weaknesses associated with any begin).

Make certain that strengths and weaknesses focus on internal qualities specific to the organization or projection. Opportunities and threats, on the other mitt, should predominantly relate to external issues. While often overlooked, this separation of internal and external features is how the model is intended to be used.

Make sure that yous maintain a articulate link between strengths and opportunities. This, for case, will allow you to determine which strengths are best suited to pursuing sure opportunities. Forces that do not provide opportunities or mitigate a threat should therefore non be taken into consideration during a SWOT session.

As you may accept deduced from the above, it is every bit of import to maintain a link between weaknesses and threats so that you can, for example, determine which weaknesses demand to be strengthened to eliminate certain threats.

My recommendation is that y'all completely stop using SWOT and instead seek amend alternatives

Replace SWOT with an action-oriented approach!

With the above improvements implemented, the SWOT approach could conceivably produce valuable insights when discussing certain bones problems.

Only, equally yous have probably figured out, I prefer an alternative. I recommend (one time more) that you drop the SWOT exercise and replace it with a more activeness-oriented exercise that invigorates your team and creates the momentum necessary to achieve the desired event.

When I get into a quick strategic analysis, I combine methods rooted in agile projection management and strategic prioritization. The procedure span three steps, which represents my action-oriented alternative to SWOT:

Step one: Focus

What do we want to achieve?
Why exercise nosotros want to reach that? (Information technology tin exist an reward to place some overall business organisation drivers – for example, finance, strategic reward, rubber, compliance, flexibility, etc. – and brainstorm on the basis of these.)

Footstep two: Identify opportunities and obstacles

What are the biggest obstacles that stand in the style of achieving it?
What opportunities are available to assist us achieve it?

Step 3: Prioritize and execute

Prioritize opportunities and, on that ground, make an action program to overcome the most of import obstacles and seize the most important opportunities. In that location can – but should not – be a connection betwixt obstacles and opportunities.