Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for one organization, each backed by evidence.
Most SWOT analyses are four boxes of adjectives: strong brand, limited resources, growing market, more competition. Nobody can argue with them and nobody can act on them. This page has one filled in the harder way, for a made-up two-screen cinema. Each point comes with its evidence, and the grid is followed by decisions. Borrow the method and bring your own facts.
Who it's for
A consultant, a general manager or a team lead writing for the people who set next year's plan: a board, an owner, a leadership team. Send it a week or two before the planning day, so they arrive having read it.
If the group hasn't seen the facts yet and needs to argue about them, do that in a room first and write this up afterward. The page records the thinking, not the debate.
What a good one contains
- A claim and its evidence in each point. "Event screenings fill the room" is the claim. The evidence is 88% of seats sold on those nights, against 34% on ordinary ones. Cut any point you can't put a figure or a source next to.
- Three points a quadrant. A list of ten per box hides the two that matter.
- Inside and outside kept apart. Strengths and weaknesses are yours to change, like an 11-year-old projector. Opportunities and threats happen whether you act or not, like a multiplex opening three miles away.
- Pairs that become actions. This is the part most SWOTs skip. Every point has a code, so W1 × O1 can set empty weekday daytimes against 27 hire requests turned away. The move is a $21,000 part-time post that $24,300 of hires would pay for.
- An owner, a date and a value on each action. "Running by August 31" and "− $58,000, once" are things a board can approve or refuse.
- What you're leaving out of the plan. The cinema lists the points that didn't become a move, and says why for each.
From the grid to the plan
Fill the grid quickly and spend your time on the pairs. Two kinds are worth the most: a strength that answers a threat, and a weakness that a threat will make worse. A projector that fails four times a year is an annoyance. Once a competitor opens down the road, it's urgent.
Test each strength against a rival before you keep it. If every competitor could claim it too, drop it.
Then add up what the actions cost and what they'd bring in, and print the sums. A planning meeting can decide on $79,000 against $72,152 a year. It can't decide on a grid.
How to send it
To named people. It lists your weaknesses with figures attached. Only the board members and managers planning next year need to open it.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
