绩效管理－战略规划－SWOT分析

SWOT Analysis

When dealing with complex situations in a limited amount of time, trying to address all the issues involved often does not pay off. Rather, strategic planners limit their efforts to those issues that have the most impact on the situation. SWOT analysis provides a framework for identifying these critical issues. First, the focus is on the concerned entity: a region, a city, a neighborhood, a building, a person. Then, analyses are limited to the significant strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths that characterize the situation.

For illustrative purposes let us apply the SWOT framework to Ms. June E. Ear's situation. Strengths are positive aspects internal to the entity: June's ability to work hard is a strength. Weaknesses are negative aspects internal to the entity: June's tendency to procrastinate is a weakness. Opportunities are positive aspects external to the entity: June's supervisor rewards those who satisfactorily complete projects. Threats are negative aspects external to the entity: there is often not enough time to complete most projects.

In reporting each of your analyses in the analysis phase of the class project, please use the following general format. The bulk of your report (at least a page and a half) will be a narrative summary of the issues that characterize the site. This narrative will be a well-organized, reasonably expansive discussion of how the current topic (urban systems and processes, imageability, etc.) applies to the site. The narrative will be followed by a list of significant strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Each item in this bulleted SWOT list must be a short but evocative descriptor of an issue, and the list itself must be organized into the four categories of issues. There may be more than one item in each category, or there may be no items at all. For example, a site may have no significant strengths whatsover in terms of spatial definition.

The purpose of SWOT analysis is to isolate key issues and to facilitate a strategic approach. Be sure that is exactly what you do. To this end, the items in the SWOT list must have been discussed earlier in the narrative. If they bear no relation to the earlier discussion, then they must be elaborated, and that defeats the purpose of the SWOT list.

Finally, while the SWOT list appears at the end of your narrative, please be absolutely sure that it is not an afterthought, hastily thrown together to satisfy this requirement. If you do not approach this list seriously, you will find later in the project that you are at a serious disadvantage. Here is why. During the design phase of the project, you will be required to identify the top three design issues that you will address in your design scheme. These three issues will be selected from the various SWOT lists you compiled during the analysis phase. The more carefully constructed your SWOT lists, the more easy you will find focusing on the three most important issues.