The Manager’s Coaching Toolkit: Fast and Simple Solutions for Busy Managers

History of the tool

The SWOT tool is a familiar, simple and effective tool, tried and tested in many situations since it was initially developed. It began its life in the 1960s as SOFT – Satisfactory, Opportunity, Fault and Threat – at the Stanford Research Institute as the ‘planning issue analysis’ step of a more complex and integrated corporate planning method. It then evolved as SWOT and was promoted in Britain by Urick and Orr in 1970 as a tool in and of itself. It has been used as an organizational analysis tool in board rooms across the world, and has been adapted freely and often to fit an enormous range of situations.