How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 545

Translating SWOT issues into actions under the six categories
Albert Humphrey advocated that the six categories:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Product (what are we selling?)
Process (how are we selling it?)
Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
Distribution (how does it reach them?)
Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
Administration (and how do we manage all this?)

provide a framework by which SWOT issues can be developed into
actions and managed using teams.
This can be something of a 'leap', and so the stage warrants further
explanation. Translating the SWOT issues into actions, are best sorted
into (or if necessary broken down into) the six categories, because in
the context of the way that business and organizations work, this makes
them more quantifiable and measurable, responsible teams more
accountable, and therefore the activities more manageable. The other
pivotal part in the process is of course achieving the commitment from
the team(s) involved, which is partly explained in the item summarising
Humphrey's TAM® model and process.
As far as identifying actions from SWOT issues is concerned, it all very
much depends on your reasons and aims for using SWOT, and also your
authority/ability to manage others, whom by implication of SWOT's
breadth and depth, are likely to be involved in the agreement and
delivery of actions.
Depending on pretext and situation, a SWOT analysis can produce
issues which very readily translate into (one of the six) category actions,
or a SWOT analysis can produce issues which overlay a number of
categories. Or a mixture. Whatever, SWOT essentially tells you what is
good and bad about a business or a particular proposition. If it's a
business, and the aim is to improve it, then work on translating:

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