My college is going through a SWOT analysis process at the moment and each division and department is supposed to fill out a 29 page form detailing where things stand.
SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. Wikipedia has a good primer article on it, including a few warnings about how not to use it. I also found a web page that performs some SWOT analyses on familiar corporations.
Essentially, the analysis serves as a tool to get organizations talking about the internal factors (Strengths and Weaknesses) and external factors (Opportunities and Threats) in relation to a project or venture. It doesn’t have to be applied to an entire organization, but perhaps to a sub-area like ticket office operations. Small groups within an organization can employ this process in order to make recommendations to management.
I just thought I would toss this information out there as an FYI. While it does have its weaknesses, the process is fairly easy to use and doesn’t require participation by everyone in the organization to be effective.