Don't Leave Your Success to Chance
By Christian Knutson, P.E.
A great strategic planning tool used in business for analyzing an environment for a new project is the SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Business planners know that in order for a project to be successful, they need to scope the playing field to determine what resources to allocate, what challenges will be faced, and what outside support is going to be required.
From strategic planning in your organization to determining what new projects your son’s Boy Scout troop will undertake to analyzing your personal-professional aspirations, using the SWOT analysis is a useful tool for achieving your objectives. The reason the tool is so effective is that it focuses your thinking on the key factors that spell success for any project. Doing this highlights the internal (strengths, weaknesses) and external (opportunities, threats) factors involved, and in so doing, eliminates risk through awareness.
You can employ the SWOT analysis on your objectives by:
1. Define the goal or objective. In our professional lives, this might be earning a master’s degree, professional licensure, or launching our own company. Work on the goal until you can clearly articulate what you want in no more than eight words, for example: “Obtain my PE by April 2012” or “Secure two federal contracts by January 2013.”
2. Strengths. These will be your characteristics that give you an advantage over others in your organization, career field, or specialty. Some examples might be technical or life experience, education, perseverance, and charisma.
3. Weaknesses. Counter to the previous, these are your characteristics placing you at a disadvantage relative to others. Examples here might include a lack of education, experience, or contacts in a specific field.
4. Opportunities. These are the external known-knowns that increase your chances in achieving your goal. Examples here might include referrals from colleagues, business leads from a friend, an upcoming conference with a speaking engagement, or a scheduled PE examination prep course.
5. Threats. These are the outside elements conspiring to keep you from achieving your objectives. Threats can include things such as procrastination; fear of failure, rejection, or unknowns; competing interests on time, competition from others, and health concerns.
6. Action Plan. From the SWOT above, you build an action plan and time line for meeting your goal by leveraging your strengths and opportunities, while being on the lookout for your weaknesses and scanning for the threats.
Success in any endeavor we undertake can be planned and must not be left to chance. As professional engineers, we invest a lot of time in eliminating risk in our clients’ projects. We do this in order to make the projects successful, make us successful, and therefore build a reputation of success and due diligence. Invest the time to analyze your personal objectives and eliminate risk through analysis.
“Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true.”
--Lester Robert Bittel
NSPE member Chris Knutson, P.E., has over 17 years in the U.S. Air Force as an engineer officer and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel commanding a civil engineer squadron in New Mexico. He is a member of the NSPE Mentoring Task Force.
