ANALYSIS TOOL BOX

SWOT Analysis

Characterize an actor's position across Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — then go beyond the four lists. Combine items across the matrix into TOWS-style Strategy Options (SO leverage, ST counter, WO shore up, WT defend), keep every strategy linked to the evidence-tagged items it was built from, and save versions as your understanding of the actor evolves.

How this technique works

About this technique

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis sorts what you know about an actor into four categories. Strengths and weaknesses are internal attributes that help or hinder an objective. Opportunities and threats are external conditions that do the same. SWOT came out of business-planning research in the 1960s. In 1982, Heinz Weihrich added the TOWS matrix, which turns the four lists into strategies by pairing internal factors with external ones. This tool does both.

When to use it

Use SWOT for a situational assessment of a single actor: an adversary, a competitor, a partner, or your own organization. It works well early in a project, when you need a shared, organized picture before you generate options. If your question is about an entire industry rather than one organization, start with Porter's Five Forces.

How to use this tool

  1. Name the actor being assessed, and link the project artifact this analysis supports, if there is one.

  2. Fill all four quadrants, giving each item a source citation and a short theme such as "Financing."

  3. Select two or more items to combine into a strategy option. The tool labels the canonical TOWS pairings:

    • Leverage: a strength exploits an opportunity.
    • Counter: a strength blunts a threat.
    • Shore up: an opportunity overcomes a weakness.
    • Defend / mitigate: minimize a weakness while avoiding a threat.

    Any other combination is labeled custom.

  4. Write each strategy in prose and set its priority.

  5. Send promising strategies to ACH as hypotheses, and save a version as the picture changes.

Common pitfalls

  • Mixing internal and external. A competitor's new product is a threat, not a weakness of yours.
  • Stopping at four lists. The analytic value is in the strategy combinations.
  • Unsourced items. An uncited strength is an opinion.

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