The Meaning of SWOT

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT analysis is used for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses and for looking at the Opportunities and Threats you face. In a business sense, it can help you carve out your niche in the market and can help your business grow in the right way. In a team sense, it is used for identifying a team’s strengths and weaknesses, and for areas of growth and potential problems that lie ahead. It can even be used in a personal sense to develop your career.

It is a good idea to perform a SWOT analysis of your team at pre-defined points in time. These points depend on the type of team and how often it meets. For example, a team responsible for publishing a daily company newsletter may want to do a SWOT analysis as often as every two weeks. If the team was responsible for publishing a quarterly newsletter, however, the analysis would probably only be necessary once or twice a year.

As well, a SWOT analysis of the company can also help direct the team and make it more productive. For example, if the newsletter team knows that the company has a great opportunity to extend its market into Canada, it may discuss ways that the team can help the company achieve this goal.