SWOT Matrix

Given the many challenges that we have to deal with day to day management, one of the most difficult is to organize the thinking when we look at so much information.

A very functional way to do this is to use frameworks. They are mental structures that forms a support for an idea. We can use a framework to deal with problems or to decide what to do, based on a particular set of rules, ideas or beliefs.

One of the most popular frameworks in Business Management is the SWOT matrix or SWOT analysis, which seeks to organize what's good and bad inside and outside a business environment, to achieve a goal or build a strategy. There is no certainty about its creation, but seems to have been consolidated at Harvard. A simple image exemplifies:

Factors	positives	negatives
internals	Strengths	Weaknesses
externals	Opportunities	Threats

If we have an internal positive factor, this is a company's strength and the S for Strengths. If the internal factor is negative, it is a weakness - the W for Weaknesses.

In the outside world is the same: a positive factor is an outside chance - O for Opportunities and, finally, if there is a negative factor in the outside world, we call this a threat, it's the final T.

Thus we are led to believe intuitively, from the SWOT matrix, the internal and external environment, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the company. We can also organize these factors in order to concentrate the "worst moments" of the company at the center and optimize the investment of time, people and money. Place the weaker forces near the strongest weaknesses, place the worst opportunities alongside the most powerful threats and make your Action Plan:

	positive	negative
internal	S3	W1
	S2	W2
	S1	W3
external	O1	T3
	O2	T2
	O3	T1

I like administration a lot