SWOT — no platitudes

What it is

A four-box audit that sorts what you already know about your position along two axes: whether something sits inside the business or outside it, and whether it helps or hinders. Internal and helpful is a strength; external and harmful is a threat; and so on round the grid. Almost all of the value is in the sorting — the same fact filed in the wrong box leads to the wrong response.

Strengths

Internal, helpful, present tense. Capabilities, assets, relationships, cost positions or reputations that you control and that work in your favour today. Not ambitions, not plans — things that are already true and that you could evidence if challenged.

Weaknesses

Internal, harmful, present tense. Gaps, costs, dependencies, skill shortages or structural constraints inside the business. This is the box everyone softens, which is why it is usually the least useful one on the page.

Opportunities

External, helpful, forward-looking. Movements out in the world — in the market, technology, regulation, demographics or competitor behaviour — that you could turn to your advantage. Conditions, not actions.

Threats

External, harmful, forward-looking. The same kind of movements, working against you. Frequently the mirror image of an opportunity seen from the other side: a shift that helps a competitor more than it helps you.

How you run it

1. Set the boundaryDecide what you are doing the SWOT on — the whole business, one unit, one product. A fuzzy subject produces fuzzy entries.
2. Generate without filteringGet everything down first. Do not argue about whether something is a strength or an opportunity — that argument wastes the session.
3. Apply the competitor testFor every strength and weakness, ask: could our nearest competitor write the same line? If yes it is a table stake. This is the step that makes SWOT worth doing.
4. Make each entry specific"Strong brand" fails. "72% prompted awareness among trade buyers, twice our nearest rival" passes.
5. Pull the threadsTake the two or three entries that would change a decision into a real tool — Five Forces for a structural threat, Jobs to be Done for a customer one.

The prompt

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