Does your motivational need level according to Maslow indicate a
deficiency?
Opportunities:
What opportunities (dreams, wishes, goals) have you been
considering in this area?
Do your personality/ intelligence preferences or motivational needs
indicate any opportunities that you haven’t previously considered?
What could you improve in this result area for you? List as many
‘goals’ as you can – which one or two will have the most impact on
this aspect of your life?
How can you take advantage of your strengths to pursue these?
Do you have any weaknesses that may impede these goals?
What major change do you need in your life to improve this area?
Are there any special tools you can use or develop to help?
Threats:
What external threats (changes to income, events, etc) could affect
you negatively? How could these affect you?
Are you facing any risks in this area if you continue along your
current path? What are they – list them all. What would happen if
these risks took place?
What obstacles or roadblocks are in your way?
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Do your personality/ intelligence preferences or motivational needs
indicate any threats that you haven’t previously considered?
Do any of your weaknesses increase the level of these threats or the
impact?
What strengths do you have that could help you reduce the identified
threats?
The outcome you want from the SWOT analysis is a list of:
What opportunities are best for you to pursue
What internal strengths you can use to enhance your pursuit of these
opportunities
What threats you need to eliminate/ minimise
What internal strengths you can use to overcome these threats
What strengths you should consider making stronger to further
enhance your ability to pursue your goals
What weaknesses you need to improve on, or manage, so that they
don’t impede your goal setting.
A Personal SWOT Analysis will allow you to make the most of your talents
and opportunities.
What are
YOUR
strengths
and
weaknesses?
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© iStockphoto/vgajic
"Chance favors the prepared mind." – Louis Pasteur
You are most likely to succeed in life if you use your talents to their
fullest extent. Similarly, you'll suffer fewer problems if you know what
your weaknesses are, and if you manage these weaknesses so that they
don't matter in the work you do.
So how you go about identifying these strengths and weaknesses, and
analyzing the opportunities and threats that flow from them? SWOT
Analysis is a useful technique that helps you do this.
What makes SWOT especially powerful is that, with a little thought, it
can help you uncover opportunities that you would not otherwise have
spotted. And by understanding your weaknesses, you can manage and
eliminate threats that might otherwise hurt your ability to move
forward.
If you look at yourself using the SWOT framework, you can start to
separate yourself from your peers, and further develop the specialized
talents and abilities you need to advance your career.
How to perform a personal SWOT analysis,?
Strengths
What advantages do you have that others don't have (for example,
skills, certifications, education, or connections)?
What do you do better than anyone else?
What personal resources can you access?
What do other people (and your boss, in particular) see as your
strengths?
Which of your achievements are you most proud of?
What values do you believe in that others fail to exhibit?
Are you part of a network that no one else is involved in? If so, what
connections do you have with influential people?
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Consider this from your own perspective, and from the point of view of
the people around you. And don't be modest or shy – be as objective as
you can.
Tip:
Think about your strengths in relation to the people around you. For
example, if you're a great mathematician and the people around you are
also great at math, then this is not likely to be a strength in your current
role – it may be a necessity.
Weaknesses
What tasks do you usually avoid because you don't feel confident
doing them?
What will the people around you see as your weaknesses?
Are you completely confident in your education and skills training? If
not, where are you weakest?
What are your negative work habits (for example, are you often late,
are you disorganized, do you have a short temper, or are you poor at
handling stress?
Do you have personality traits that hold you back in your field? For
instance, if you have to conduct meetings on a regular basis, a fear of
public speaking would be a major weakness.
Again, consider this from a personal/internal perspective and an
external perspective. Do other people see weaknesses that you don't
see? Do co-workers consistently outperform you in key areas? Be
realistic – it's best to face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.
Opportunities
What new technology can help you? Or can you get help from others
or from people via the Internet?
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Is your industry growing? If so, how can you take advantage of the
current market?
Do you have a network of strategic contacts to help you, or offer good
advice?
What trends (management or otherwise) do you see in your
company, and how can you take advantage of them?
Are any of your competitors failing to do something important? If so,
can you take advantage of their mistakes?
Is there a need in your company or industry that no one is filling?
Do your customers or vendors complain about something in your
company? If so, could you create an opportunity by offering a
solution?
You might find useful opportunities in the following:
Networking events, educational classes, or conferences.
A colleague going on an extended leave. Could you take on some of
this person's projects to gain experience?
A new role or project that forces you to learn new skills, like public
speaking or international relations.
A company expansion or acquisition. Do you have specific skills (like
a second language) that could help with the process?
Also, importantly, look at your strengths, and ask yourself whether
these open up any opportunities – and look at your weaknesses, and ask
yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating those
weaknesses.
Threats
What obstacles do you currently face at work?
Are any of your colleagues competing with you for projects or roles?
Is your job (or the demand for the things you do) changing?
Does changing technology threaten your position?
Could any of your weaknesses lead to threats?
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Performing this analysis will often provide key information – it can
point out what needs to be done and put problems into perspective.
Example of a Personal SWOT
Strengths
I'm very creative. I often impressing clients with a new perspective
on their brands.
I communicate well with my clients and team.
I have the ability to ask key questions to find just the right marketing
angle.
I'm completely committed to the success of a client's brand.
Weaknesses
I have a strong, compulsive need to do things quickly and remove
them from my "to do" list, and sometimes the quality of my work
suffers as a result.
This same need to get things done also causes me stress when I have
too many tasks.
I get nervous when presenting ideas to clients, and this fear of public
speaking often takes the passion out of my presentations.
Opportunities
One of our major competitors has developed a reputation for treating
their smaller clients poorly.
I'm attending a major marketing conference next month. This will
allow for strategic networking, and also offer some great training
seminars.
Our art director will go on maternity leave soon. Covering her duties
while she's away would be a great career development opportunity
for me.
Threats
Simon, one of my colleagues, is a much stronger speaker than I am,
and he's competing with me for the art director position.
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Due to recent staff shortages, I'm often overworked, and this
negatively impacts my creativity.
The current economic climate has resulted in slow growth for the
marketing industry. Many firms have laid off staff members, and our
company is considering further cutbacks.
Source: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05_1.htm
Technical SWOT Analysis
Similar to the personal SWOT, a technical SWOT analysis can be
conducted using the same triggers of Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats. This form of analysis can be used to assess
the viability of business cases and ventures, or to compare different
technical options.
Depending on what’s being analysed, the sub-triggers under each of the
main SWOT headings will vary and should be established before the
actual SWOT commences.
Typical sub-triggers for technical and business SWOT analyses include
political, environmental, economic, social, technical, resources and
ethics. And of course, these sub-triggers can form a number of acronyms
such as:
PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technical.
STEEP – Social, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Political.
STEEPER - Social, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Political,
Ethics, Resources.
In business, you may hear someone say they’re going to do say a STEEP
SWOT analysis – this just means that they are doing a SWOT analysis
using the STEEP acronym as triggers under each of the main SWOT
headings. In this case, when the “strengths” of the particular object of
analysis are being considered, the strengths of the object in terms of
Social
strengths,
Technical
strengths,
Economic
strengths,
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Environmental strengths and Political strengths will be considered.
And so on for weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Source: http://www.achieve-goal-setting-success.com/SWOT-analysis.html
More on the difference and relationship between PEST and SWOT
There is some overlap between PEST and SWOT. Similar factors appear
in each. That said, PEST and SWOT are certainly two different
perspectives:
PEST tends to assess a market, including competitors, from the
standpoint of a particular proposition or a business.
SWOT in business and marketing tends to be an assessment of a
business or a proposition, whether it is your own business or (less
commonly) a competitor's business or proposition.
Strategic planning is not a precise science - no tool is mandatory - it's a
matter of pragmatic choice as to what helps best to identify and explain
the issues.
PEST analysis may useful before SWOT analysis where it helps to
identify SWOT factors. Alternatively PEST analysis may be incorporated
within a SWOT analysis, to achieve the same effect.
PEST becomes more useful and relevant the larger and more complex
the business or proposition, but even for a very small local businesses a
PEST analysis can still throw up one or two very significant issues that
might otherwise be missed.
The four quadrants in PEST vary in significance depending on the type
of business, for example, social factors are more obviously relevant to
consumer businesses or a B2B (business-to-business) organization
close to the consumer-end of the supply chain, whereas political factors
are more obviously relevant to a global munitions supplier or aerosol
propellant manufacturer.
All businesses benefit from a SWOT analysis, and all businesses benefit
from completing a SWOT analysis of their main competitors, which
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interestingly can then provide useful points back into the economic
aspects of the PEST analysis.
Swot analysis history - the origins of the SWOT analysis model
This remarkable piece of history as to the origins of SWOT analysis was
provided by Albert S Humphrey, one of the founding fathers of what we
know today as SWOT analysis. I am indebted to him for sharing this
fascinating contribution. Albert Humphrey died on 31 October 2005. He
was one of the good guys.
SWOT analysis came from the research conducted at Stanford Research
Institute from 1960-1970. The background to SWOT stemmed from the
need to find out why corporate planning failed. The research was
funded by the fortune 500 companies to find out what could be done
about this failure. The Research Team were Marion Dosher, Dr Otis
Benepe, Albert Humphrey, Robert Stewart, Birger Lie.
It all began with the corporate planning trend, which seemed to appear
first at Du Pont in 1949. By 1960 every Fortune 500 company had a
'corporate planning manager' (or equivalent) and 'associations of long
range corporate planners' had sprung up in both the USA and the UK.
However a unanimous opinion developed in all of these companies that
corporate planning in the shape of long range planning was not
working, did not pay off, and was an expensive investment in futility.
It was widely held that managing change and setting realistic objectives
which carry the conviction of those responsible was difficult and often
resulted in questionable compromises.
The fact remained, despite the corporate and long range planners, that
the one and only missing link was how to get the management team
agreed and committed to a comprehensive set of action programmes.
To create this link, starting in 1960, Robert F Stewart at SRI in Menlo
Park California lead a research team to discover what was going wrong
with corporate planning, and then to find some sort of solution, or to
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create a system for enabling management teams agreed and committed
to development work, which today we call 'managing change'.
The research carried on from 1960 through 1969. 1100 companies and
organizations were interviewed and a 250-item questionnaire was
designed and completed by over 5,000 executives. Seven key findings
lead to the conclusion that in corporations chief executive should be the
chief planner and that his immediate functional directors should be the
planning team. Dr Otis Benepe defined the 'Chain of Logic' which
became the core of system designed to fix the link for obtaining
agreement and commitment.
1.
Values
2.
Appraise
3.
Motivation
4.
Search
5.
Select
6.
Programme
7.
Act
8.
Monitor and repeat steps 1 2 and 3
We discovered that we could not change the values of the team nor set
the objectives for the team so we started as the first step by asking the
appraisal question, for example, what's good and bad about the
operation. We began the system by asking what is good and bad about
the present and the future. What is good in the present is Satisfactory,
good in the future is an Opportunity; bad in the present is a Fault and
bad in the future is a Threat. This was called the SOFT analysis.
When this was presented to Urick and Orr in 1964 at the Seminar in
Long Range Planning at the Dolder Grand in Zurich Switzerland they
changed the F to a W and called it SWOT Analysis.
SWOT was then promoted in Britain by Urick and Orr as an exercise in
and of itself. As such it has no benefit. What was necessary was the
sorting of the issues into the programme planning categories of:
1. Product (what are we selling?)
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2. Process (how are we selling it?)
3. Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
4. Distribution (how does it reach them?)
5. Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
6.
Administration (and how do we manage all this?)
The second step then becomes 'what shall the team do' about the issues
in each of these categories. The planning process was then designed
through trial and error and resulted finally in a 17 step process
beginning with SOFT/SWOT with each issue recorded separately on a
single page called a planning issue.
The first prototype was tested and published in 1966 based on the work
done at 'Erie Technological Corp' in Erie Pa. In 1970 the prototype was
brought to the UK, under the sponsorship of W H Smith & Sons plc, and
completed by 1973. The operational programme was used to merge the
CWS milling and baking operations with those of J W French Ltd.
The process has been used successfully ever since. By 2004, now, this
system has been fully developed, and proven to cope with today's
problems of setting and agreeing realistic annual objectives without
depending on outside consultants or expensive staff resources.
The seven key research findings
The key findings were never published because it was felt they were too
controversial. This is what was found:
1) A business was divided into two parts. The base business plus the
development business. This was re-discovered by Dr Peter Senge at MIT
in 1998 and published in his book the Fifth Discipline (not '5th
Dimension' as previously stated here - thanks J Hoffman for this
correction, 28 Jan 2011). The amount of development business which
become operational is equal to or greater than that business on the
books within a period of 5 to 7 years. This was a major surprise and
urged the need for discovering a better method for planning and
managing change.
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2) Dr Hal Eyring published his findings on 'Distributive Justice' and
pointed out that all people measure what they get from their work and
divide it by what they give to the work and this ratio is compared to
others. If it is not equal then the person first re-perceives and secondly
slows down if added demands are not met.
3) The introduction of a corporate planner upset the sense of fair play at
senior level, making the job of the corporate planner impossible.
4) The gap between what could be done by the organisation and what
was actually done was about 35%.
5) The senior man will over-supervise the area he comes from. Finance-
Finance, Engineering-Engineering etc.
6) There are 3 factors which separate excellence from mediocrity:
a. Overt attention to purchasing
b. Short-term written down departmental plans for improvement
c. Continued education of the Senior Executive
7) Some form of formal documentation is required to obtain approval
for development work. In short we could not solve the problem by
stopping planning.
In conclusion
By sorting the SWOT issues into the 6 planning categories one can
obtain a system which presents a practical way of assimilating the
internal and external information about the business unit, delineating
short and long term priorities, and allowing an easy way to build the
management team which can achieve the objectives of profit growth.
This approach captures the collective agreement and commitment of
those who will ultimately have to do the work of meeting or exceeding
the objectives finally set. It permits the team leader to define and
develop co-ordinated, goal-directed actions, which underpin the overall
agreed objectives between levels of the business hierarchy.
Albert S Humphrey - August 2004
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Translating SWOT issues into actions under the six categories
Albert Humphrey advocated that the six categories:
1. Product (what are we selling?)
2. Process (how are we selling it?)
3. Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
4. Distribution (how does it reach them?)
5. Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
6. Administration (and how do we manage all this?)
provide a framework by which SWOT issues can be developed into
actions and managed using teams.
This can be something of a 'leap', and so the stage warrants further
explanation. Translating the SWOT issues into actions, are best sorted
into (or if necessary broken down into) the six categories, because in
the context of the way that business and organizations work, this makes
them more quantifiable and measurable, responsible teams more
accountable, and therefore the activities more manageable. The other
pivotal part in the process is of course achieving the commitment from
the team(s) involved, which is partly explained in the item summarising
Humphrey's TAM® model and process.
As far as identifying actions from SWOT issues is concerned, it all very
much depends on your reasons and aims for using SWOT, and also your
authority/ability to manage others, whom by implication of SWOT's
breadth and depth, are likely to be involved in the agreement and
delivery of actions.
Depending on pretext and situation, a SWOT analysis can produce
issues which very readily translate into (one of the six) category actions,
or a SWOT analysis can produce issues which overlay a number of
categories. Or a mixture. Whatever, SWOT essentially tells you what is
good and bad about a business or a particular proposition. If it's a
business, and the aim is to improve it, then work on translating:
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strengths (maintain, build and leverage),
opportunities (prioritise and optimise),
weaknesses (remedy or exit),
threats (counter)
into actions (each within one of the six categorie