At this institution, the President constituted a steering committee to ...

Start Your Planning With a SWOT! Sharron L. Ronco, Ph. D.
Associate Provost, Institutional Effectiveness & Analysis John Cahill
Research Associate, Institutional Effectiveness & Analysis Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Rd.
Boca Raton, FL 33431
(561) 297-2665
(561) 297-2590 fax
sronco@fau.edu
jcahill@fau.edu
Introduction If planning results from "an ability that is awakened by the human
appetite to better our condition," (Dooris, Kelley and Trainer, 2004) then
higher education must be ravenous. Planning in higher education is
ubiquitous, occurring in all types of institutions, using diverse
strategies, producing varied outcomes, for the benefit of many different
stakeholders, and in nearly constant cycles. Planning involves the identification of desired outcomes and the
development of a process for achieving specified goals. Strategic planning
takes the process a step further, requiring an environmental assessment as
a part of the process of goal identification, determining which goals to
pursue and how resources can be allocated most efficiently and effectively
to achieve the desired outcomes. Strategic planning creates a framework
for achieving competitive advantage in setting the institution's future
course. A central component of strategic planning is an assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses within the internal organization, and the
opportunities or threats in the organization's external environment which
may affect its ability to pursue and achieve its goals. A "strengths-
weaknesses-opportunities-threats" (SWOT) analysis can be broadly-construed
or narrowly focused, involve many constituencies or few, take place over
months or minutes, but it is always intended to set the stage for
meaningful planning. The result of a strategic planning process is clearly dependent on
good information. Conducting a SWOT analysis requires input and information
from an organization's constituents. Information collected, analyzed, and
synthesized in the process of strategic planning and SWOT analysis is used
by decision makers in the formation and adjustment of strategy. Thus, the
process of strategic planning in higher education is aided by institutional
researchers with the ability to collect, identify, analyze and interpret
information to impact the strategic planning process. As stated by George
Keller in his seminal work Academic Strategy, "In strategic planning the
planner does not plan. He or she prompts or helps the line officers to
plan with statistics, forecasts, institutional data, the best reports by
outsiders and on competitors, and visits to your campus by other
strategists, scholars, or consultants." (Keller,1983). Historical Framework
The word strategy is derived from the Greek verb stratego, meaning to
plan the defeat of one's enemies through the effective use of resources
(Keller, 1983). In fact, strategic planning began in the military where
the objective was to maneuver forces into advantageous positions before
engaging the enemy. Strategic planning was picked up by business in the
1950s where it became widespread during the next two decades. In higher
education, planning can likewise be traced back to the rapid physical
growth of colleges and universities beginning in the 1950s, leading to the
organization of the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP).
Strategic planning has flourished as higher education has been forced to
confront challenges like changing demographics, dwindling financial
support, and increasing competition from nontraditional providers. SWOT analysis is generally known as the first step and a key
component of a strategic planning process. The idea of focusing on an
organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as part of
a strategic planning process was popularized by members of the Harvard
School of Business in the 1960s. The first mention of the theories which
comprise SWOT analysis as we know it today is evident in Leadership in
Administration, written by Philip Szelnick in the late 1950s. Another
leader in the development of strategic planning, Igor Ansoff, extended the
Harvard model with a structured, detailed and prescribed step-by-step
process in contrast to the Harvard model's emphasis on simplicity.
(Mintzberg, 1994) The SWOT analysis dominated early strategic planning models, and in
higher education became popular during the 1970s and 1980s as the concept
and role of planning evolved in response to environmental challenges. SWOT
gave rise to related planning models like the PEST and Porter's Five
Forces. 1 Newer models focus on strategic agility and the importance of
strategic thinking and organizational learning, rather than on the static
planning models of the past. Still, the SWOT remains a stalwart of
strategic planning with its appealing ease of use. James Trainer includes
SWOT analysis among his top ten planning tools for use by institutional
researchers involved in strategic planning at their institutions. SWOT
analysis is particularly relevant and useful for higher education
institutions due to its ability to highlight "the institution's resources
and programs versus its external environment." (Trainer, 2004). Following identification of the SWOT areas, planning experts apply
situational analysis to identify relationships between environmental
threats and opportunities and the organization's strengths and weaknesses.
The TOWS matrix, introduced by Weihrich (1990), is a conceptual framework
for deriving strategies, tactics and actions for attainment of
organizational mission. In the simplest version of the TOWS matrix,
"threats" and "opportunities" are listed along the side of the matrix, with
"weaknesses" and "strengths" across the top. The intersection of internal
and external environments reveals how the organization's resources and
capabilities can be used to counteract outside threats and leverage
opportunities. The TOWS analysis is also referred to as "Turning
Opportunities and Weaknesses into Strengths." (Trainer, 2004). In the TOWS matrix, S-O strategies use the institution's strengths to
take advantage of opportunities in the external environment. These are
areas where the institution may consider aggressive expansion. W-O
strategies identify how to remedy existing weaknesses in order to take
advantage of opportunities. S-T strategies capitalize on the institution's
strengths to reduce vulnerability to threats in the outside environment.
Finally, W-T strategies consider how the institution might retrench and cut
its losses in the face of threats that cannot be overcome. Methodology
At this institution, when the fairly new president decided that it
was time to update the university's strategic plan, he constituted a
steering committee to begin the process. January was designated as "SWOT
month," dedicated to gathering information from the university's
constituencies on its perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. It was decided to use online surveys to reach faculty and staff,
alumni,
|. What are the top three things that this |
|university does well? |
| What should we preserve at all cost? |
| |
|. Who are our chief competitors? |
| What do we do better than our competitors? |
| What does the competition do better, that we |
|should be doing? |
| |
|. What three things should we address |
|immediately to improve? |
| What do we do poorly? |
| What directions should we avoid taking in the|
|future? |
| |
|. What do people outside of this university see |
|as it strengths? |
| What do people outside of this university see|
|as its weaknesses? |
| |
|. What opportunities could we take advantage of |
|in the next five years? |
| What is changing in the environment that |
|could adversely affect us? |
Figure 1. SWOT questions for online survey and focus
groups applicants who did not enroll, parents and donors. Since campus advisory
groups were already scheduled to meet early in the term, that meeting time
was dedicated to a focused discussion on the topic. The advisory groups,
made up of community leaders and area business persons, proved to be
enthusiastic participants. The questions that comprised both the online survey and focus group
discussion are shown in Figure 1. After much debate, we decided to leave
the online survey questions completely open-ended instead of presenting
respondents with fixed responses or other prompts. Although this meant
creating a large volume of narrative information that would require manual
content analysis, we believed that it was important to let the respondents'
thoughts develop independently. The response rate for the online SWOT
surveys varied by group but averaged about 20% overall. For the most part,
those who responded did so thoughtfully, taking time to compose
comprehensive responses to the questions posed. We were reluctant to burden students with yet another survey since we
already had abundant information on w