How to conduct a SWOT strategic analysis

- Investigating the strategic aspects of a possible solution often boils down to analyzing just four things, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In this video, we'll use a simple but powerful tool called SWOT analysis to look at these four elements. Performing a SWOT analysis before making a choice can help you understand the trade-offs you need to consider. A SWOT analysis is a two-by-two grid, so there are four boxes. In one box, you list the key strengths for the proposal. In the next boxes, you list the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats. It may sound easy, but it's not. Nevertheless, taking the time to do a SWOT analysis can really help teams dig into the strategic issues and improve everyone's understanding of the options. Let's look at the sort of questions a project leader might ask for each quadrant. What are the strengths of a particular option? Does it solve the problem? Is it fast or cheap? Does it seem relatively easy? How about the weaknesses? Maybe it's slow, expensive, complicated or risky. These might be the opposite of the strengths, but ironically, sometimes a weakness can also be a strength. And then we have the opportunities. Does this solution create an opportunity to enter a new market, to capture market share from a competitor? Last, we have the threats. What could go wrong? Are there intellectual property issues? Do we have the talent we need to make it happen? What you'll see from doing this analysis is that there are some factors to consider that are internal to your organization, the strengths and the weaknesses, and there are some that relate to the external environment, the opportunities and the threats. You'll also notice that some factors work in favor of your proposed solution, the strengths and the opportunities, and others work against it, the weaknesses and the threats. Now let's take a look at using a SWOT analysis for H+ Sport. Their distribution challenges are having a big impact on company performance. We have some potential solutions in mind, but to save time and resources chasing the wrong solution, we need to understand their strategic implications. So let's use a SWOT analysis to evaluate one of these proposals, the option of hiring another firm to handle our fulfillment. Take a look at the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats that come with this solution. I've included a copy in the exercise files. As you can see, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can be a challenge and will probably take some time. But the SWOT analysis approach is a great tool to help your team investigate the strategic issues related to your project and to capture them in a way that makes logical sense. Now, think about a problem that you're facing and one of the solutions that you're considering. Try doing a SWOT analysis on that solution. What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? I think you'll find that the SWOT analysis is a great tool for investigating your options and making better decisions.