ANALYZE STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS
The SWOT analysis template helps you quickly create a SWOT matrix or facilitate workshops that incorporate a SWOT analysis. Assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to address where you excel and where you may fall short.
A SWOT analysis is an exercise that helps understand an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats.
Strengths will let you know what you’re doing well and identify where you have an advantage in your project. Weaknesses will similarly let you see what you can work on to make it better. Opportunities show how you can take advantage of undiscovered options, and threats can determine where internal or external problems might harm your chances of success
A SWOT analysis uses a matrix to collect and analyze this information about your company or project.
The SWOT analysis template provides the framework to help determine the overall viability of a given strategy, evaluate internal and external factors, and determine what may be holding a strategy or organization back from improving its strategic positioning.
In-house business analysts in marketing and strategic roles will find a SWOT analysis helpful. Marketers can use a SWOT analysis when looking for insights before a campaign. When they learn the strengths of their product, they can use those strengths as part of messaging. Alternatively, they can use its weaknesses to their advantage.
Knowing what you’re up against in a SWOT analysis can help you see where you can be better than the competition. One method is to evaluate your own weaknesses before addressing threats. If you have relatively few weaknesses, then you’re better prepared to attack the threats you identify.
Client-facing consultants might use a SWOT analysis to determine a client’s strengths and weaknesses in order to understand what may hold them back from becoming better. Using this information the client can build a strategy to shore up their strengths and begin reducing factors that contribute to their weaknesses.
MURAL’s template allows all team members to vote on which is more important to work on first — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, or threats. Getting this input from your team not only creates a collaborative spirit, but also allows you to see what your team thinks is important.
A simple timer feature is used to limit the amount of time people have to vote, allowing SWOT meetings to progress appropriately. The facilitator of the SWOT analysis can set the time limits.
While navigating through a team dynamic, you also want to make sure everyone is focused on the goal of analyzing the data in a SWOT report.
Although you can come up with questions that speak specifically to your company’s needs or team dynamics, you can also use the questions provided in the MURAL template, like:
You can use SWOT analysis and apply it to your competition, but you can also evaluate your company or business. It’s a good idea to regularly perform a SWOT analysis to measure your company’s health, especially if one of the factors has changed (for instance, when new threats arise).
A SWOT analysis shows you what strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats your business may face. If you’re looking at your own personal growth, start with a goal, like “choosing a new hobby” or “building self confidence” that you can build the SWOT analysis around.
There’s no hard limit for how many contributors are needed to create a successful SWOT analysis, so don’t be afraid to invite others to collaborate. We recommend having at least a few other collaborators to help create a robust, insightful SWOT analysis.