se analysis: Definition and examples. SafetyCulture. Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://safetyculture.com/topics/root-cause-analysis/(Refer to Appendix 7.D: Sample Root Cause Analysis: Fall-Related Injuries on Behavioral Health Unit)
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis
A SWOT analysis is a high-level strategic planning model that helps organizations, programs, and/or other entities identify where they are doing well and where they can improve from both an internal and external perspective. A SWOT analysis can help you evaluate your business, program, or other entity by considering multiple factors:
- Strengths and weaknesses (represented as internal factors). Internal factors are considered things that can be controlled. Examples include team members, program content, and geographical location.
- Opportunities and threats (represented as external factors). External factors are considered things that cannot be controlled. Examples include policies and regulations, economic trends, and competitors.
Students can use a SWOT analysis to plot out a future course for their capstone project that will focus on project strengths while minimizing risks. Insights you glean resulting from your SWOT analysis should be used constructively as part of the capstone planning process (Jackson, 2022).
How to Do a SWOT Analysis
Undertaking a SWOT analysis requires planning and organization. The following steps will take you through the process:
- Step 1: Create a SWOT Matrix (Refer to Figure 7.1: Sample SWOT Matrix)
Figure 7.1: Sample SWOT Matrix
Source: Download free vectors, clipart graphics, Vector Art & design templates. Vecteezy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/swot-analysis
- Step 2: Consider including community, program, and capstone project stakeholders. Including stakeholders input in a SWOT analysis can provide more insight as different perspectives can be considered (Jackson, 2022).
- Step 3: Lists your strengths
- Step 4: List your weaknesses
- Step 5: Identify your opportunities
- Step 6: Identify your potential threats
- Step 7: Examine your Matrix for connections
A SWOT analysis can help you with strategic planning for your capstone project and program development. This tool can help you define objectives, create priority initiatives to help make them a reality. Subsequently, a SWOT analysis can help you to identify measures that help to ensure that your capstone project is unfolding optimally (Refer to Appendix 7.E: Sample SWOT Analysis for a Hospital).
Logic models can be a valuable method for establishing capstone program planning, an implementation plan, and the outcomes or changes you hope to achieve (Doll, 2010). A concept map is an attempt to make explicit your program’s connection with theory so that it can be reviewed by others. While concepts maps provide a visual representation of how you will approach your capstone project in the context of a specified theoretical framework, logic models provide a graphic depiction that presents the shared relationships among the resources, activities, outcomes, and outcomes/impacts of your capstone project’s identified need, problem, or issue. Problem Tree and Root Cause Analyses can help you with your capstone project by identifying how to approach a recognized problem, need, or issue. Finally, a SWOT analysis can be used to evaluate your capstone project by considering multiple internal and external factors that can facilitate effective program development while minimizing risks.
Glynn has continued to meet with their mentor, capstone instructor(s), the institution’s statistician, and librarians.
The guiding theory for Glynn’s research-based capstone project is the Diffusion of Innovations. After performing a literature search to specifically gain more information about this theory, Glynn created the following: