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[science_expat]

Hi, all

I'm a newly appointed research director and the University research czar is asking for 5 year plans from each of us. As part of this, he has asked for a SWOT analysis. Specifically:

Where the research unit is now (ie: SWOT Analysis - how you can use and capitalise on your strengths, improve your weaknesses, exploit your opportunities and minimise any threats, etc)

OK, Google is my friend and I now know what a SWOT analysis is. But most of the examples come from business and it's not clear to me how this transfers to academia. And maybe I'm thick but the SWOT thing seems to be looking to the future which isn't "where the unit is now".

Anyone have any experience of this, and any advice?

Thanks,
SE

[inthelab]

Would be nice for your to tell us what SWOT stands for.

[science_expat]

Would be nice for your to tell us what SWOT stands for.

If you don't know then it's unlikely that you can provide guidance :)

[dellaroux]

They just did, but maybe it should have been with caps:

S Strengths
W Weaknesses
O Opportunites
T Threats

This transferring of categorical analyses systems can be useful in some ways but it can really skew the mission of an institution down the road.

I've seen the use of "management-think" in training ministerial candidates for churches and faith communities, (the literature starts in the early 1900s) and one result is that we now have pastors who think more about growth, time off and goal-directed activities than about spiritual direction and personal needs of their congregants.

Some of that re-direction is good, since it works against the self-martyring expectations some congregations have (still) of their pastors.

But it makes for some really strange vestry meetings sometimes.

So it could be a useful tool if well-used, but I'd stay alert to issues of mis-match between what the tool measures and what its inventors/definers encourage as goals within the training for its use.

There are often hidden agendae in such settings.

[madhatter]

OK, Google is my friend and I now know what a SWOT analysis is. But most of the examples come from business and it's not clear to me how this transfers to academia. And maybe I'm thick but the SWOT thing seems to be looking to the future which isn't "where the unit is now".

Anyone have any experience of this, and any advice?

Yeah. Our president was a fan of that technique at my last university. Basically, SWOT is supposed to be describing "where we are now." The easiest way to divide it up is to think of the SW as describing internal factors and the OT as stuff that's outside your school.

Examples:

Strengths: Expert faculty, growing enrollments, accreditation of our new professional program.

Weaknesses: Course management system causing problems with scheduling, grants declining, lab space not sufficient to attract new faculty

Opportunities: City clinics are looking for university partners -- could solve our internship placement problem, new company moving to area may hire graduates from our engineering program

Threats: State U down the road is opening a satellite campus in our city -- will this draw away our enrollments?, further economic turmoil may draw down our endowment more, online programs offering convenience we can't match

Don't get very detailed. Think of it as a way to warm up your minds for the heavy planning to be done next.

[wegie]

You know you've gone over to the dark side when . . . you do a SWOT Analysis ;-)

A large chunk of it in academic context is no more than the standard brainstorming you'd do at a department or faculty level meeting. Quite a lot of it will have already been gone over when you interviewed for the position: where d'you see the unit in 5 years, what do you see as the major pitfalls possibly facing you? How would you cope with a 20% budget cut? But instead of being arranged as action points on an agenda, you try and work out where they sit in the SWOT matrix. Occasionally, things that sit in S may also sit in W (and so on for any number of the cells of the matrix), and you need to emphasise how you're going to ensure that the Sness of the feature (we are the only centre for this study in this part of the world, and more study of this is necessary for the local economy) will overcome the Wness of the feature (we are geographically isolated).

Some of the stuff will be obvious: overdependence on one type or source of funding is a W, academic inbreeding would be a W too. Good RAE results are a definite O -- you've got five years of guaranteed funding. Equally obvious Ts would be if the university down the road wants to muscle in to your area or you only have a year to year agreement with your University on how much of the RAE money you pulled in actually goes to you.

Oh, and as for what dellaroux says about hidden agendas . . . the often none too hidden agenda in a SWOT analysis is to use the Ws and Ts to shut somebody down. Make sure you get a look at what a) your predecessor did and b) what the other research unit directors at your place have submitted to the Czar.

[daurousseau]

Any chance you can get another job before you get stuck? The prospect of working for a university boss who wants SWOT analyses shrivels my soul.

[science_expat]

Any chance you can get another job before you get stuck? The prospect of working for a university boss who wants SWOT analyses shrivels my soul.

Mine too. But fortunately he's not my line manager so this won't be a regular occurrence.

MH, Wegie - thanks for the suggestions. I'm taking notes!

[donstefano]

The good thing about swot is that it is easy to use.

S and W look at the organisation itself, here and now, without taking much of the environment into account. e.g. Strength: dept A is world-leading; weakness: 2 staff left because they were fed up with the central bureuacracy; or: our buildings are so old, job candidates are being tunred off immediately

O and T look at the future and the environment.
e.g. threat: big names X and Y will retire in 6 years => we need to start planning replacement
opportunity: expensive death wood x is retiring in 3 years, so we'll have a lot of money then to invest; or: person X is still young, but with some coaching he'll be the right person to take over as dept head in 5 years.


You can do the SWOT yourself, but even better would be to commission a series of SWOTS: aSWOT made by the young faculty, by the admin staff etc. - you then just integrate their findings.

Oh, and SWOT is basically a mapping exercise, but make sure to include some of your pet projects in it. If you don't identify your own department as at least an opportunity, if not a strength, than you'll get into trouble later

[cardamom]

Some ready examples of SWOT or SWOT type analyses that you might find useful can be found in strategic and/or 5 year plans done at either the university/college or school level, many of which are readily available. SWOT analysis has become a fairly common rubric for structuring these things (engineering schools seem to be particularly fond of this) and reading through a few can at least get you familiar with the lingo in short order.

[csguy]

Remember to put your political cap on and aim the analysis at things you want:

An example weakness might be: relatively low faculty salaries and research funding make it difficult to attract and retain quality faculty.

[sinatra]

I've done dozens of these. The best place to start is with focus groups of faculty, staff, students, etc. Find out what they think and list everything out for yourself in a computer file. Then, on a master list, under each heading (Strengths, etc.), list only those responses that get repeated by about three people, but list the items in such a way that you preserve the proposers' anonymity. So, you would write under opportunities, "Pursue arrangements with local day care facilities to accommodate children of university community," not "Members of psychology department suggested pursuing..." Also be sure to go with only those responses that were mentioned by at least three different people. That way, you will not be accused of catering to the one or two persons who are carrying a grudge over a particular issue. Also be prepared for resistance, especially from deans and VPs who find out that their pet projects did not sit well with people when they see those projects listed under Weakness. I once did a SWOT where seven members of the campus (faculty and staff) were opposed to a particular practice adopted by Student Affairs on my campus. The Dean of that area argued that the item should be removed from the final draft of the SWOT report. Because I was able to cite the number of people who saw the practice as a weakness, the Provost overruled the Dean.

[donstefano]

Very wise words from CSguy!

other threats and weknesses that need to be mentioned: the administrative burden imposed from the centre of the university, the overheads charged by the centre on grants, the crappy offices, etc etc
And the opportunities would of course include presenting your own research field as up and coming in the academic world, presenting the university with an opportunity to become world leading, provided they urgently hire 2 or 3 additional faculty in your subfield...

[madhatter]

And the opportunities would of course include presenting your own research field as up and coming in the academic world, presenting the university with an opportunity to become world leading, provided they urgently hire 2 or 3 additional faculty in your subfield...

While many of the suggestions on this thread are humorous, I wouldn't seriously encourage the OP to use them. The quickest way not to be taken seriously (and thus to lose your voice in the actual planning) is to do a SWOT analysis that boils down to this:

Strengths: Me
Weaknesses: You
Opportunities: Giving Me More
Threats: Giving Me Less

[tattletale_heart]

You can impress those already on the dark side by taking them through not just the SWOT but also the "SWOT Interplay":

S+O=your comparative advantage (and therefore areas in which you will want to invest)

S+T=need to mobilize resources (areas you will want to defend)

O+W=judgment call - should you invest or divest? collaborate? (areas about which decisions must be made)

W+T=damage control

[I've been spending too much time on the dark side...]