The origins of SWOT analysis have been enigmatic, until now. With archival research, interviews with experts and a review of the available literature, this paper reconstructs the original SOFT/SWOT approach, and draws potential implications. During a firm's planning process, all managers are asked to write down 8 to 10 key planning issues faced by their units. Each manager grades, with evidence, these issues as either safeguarding the Satisfactory; opening Opportunities; fixing Faults; or thwarting Threats: hence SOFT (which is later merely relabeled to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, or SWOT). Subgroups of managers have several dialogues about these issues with the instruction to include the needs and expectations of all the firm's stakeholders. Their developed resolutions or proposals become input for the executive planning committee to articulate corporate purpose(s) and strategies. SWOT's originator, Robert Franklin Stewart, emphasized the crucial role that creativity plays in the planning process. The SOFT/SWOT approach curbs mere top-down strategy making to the benefit of strategy alignment and implementation; Introducing digital means to parts of SWOT's original participative, long-range planning process, as suggested herein, could boost the effectiveness of organizational strategizing, communication and learning. Archival research into the deployment of SOFT/SWOT in practice is needed.

直到现在，SWOT 分析的起源一直是个谜。通过档案研究、专家访谈和现有文献回顾，本文重构了最初的 SOFT/SWOT 方法，并得出了潜在的启示。在公司的规划过程中，要求所有经理写下其部门面临的 8 到 10 个关键规划问题。每位经理都根据证据对这些问题进行评分，以保障S满意；开放机会；修复故障；或阻止威胁：因此 SOFT（后来仅重新标记为优势、劣势、机会和威胁，或 SWOT）。管理人员小组就这些问题进行了多次对话，并根据指示将公司所有利益相关者的需求和期望包括在内。他们制定的决议或提案成为执行计划委员会的输入，以阐明公司宗旨和战略。SWOT 的创始人罗伯特·富兰克林·斯图尔特强调了创造力在规划过程中的关键作用。SOFT/SWOT 方法限制了单纯的自上而下的战略制定，有利于战略调整和实施；如本文所建议的那样，将数字手段引入 SWOT 最初的参与式长期规划过程的一部分，可以提高组织战略制定的有效性，交流和学习。需要对 SOFT/SWOT 在实践中的部署进行档案研究。