What is issue analysis?

Answer 1

Issues analysis is an assessment of the external and internal environmental factors that are likely to have the greatest impact on the future of your organization. External factors include market segments, technology, competition, industry structure, and strategic opportunities and threats. Internal factors include financial resources, products and/or services, internal capabilities, and strategic strengths and limitations. Issues analysis is not an in-depth analysis of organizational functions such as marketing, services delivery, or finance. Rather, it is a broad-based analysis of those critical issues that affect the total organization. As such, it forms a large portion of the data base for the strategic planning process.

During the analytical process, the following questions should be kept in mind:

1. Is the analysis bringing to the surface the truly critical issues facing the organization?
2. Is the selection of issues based on sufficient information and judgment?
3. Are these issues being thoroughly analyzed and discussed in terms of their root causes?
4. Is the analysis producing conclusions about these root causes?
5. Are these major conclusions clearly defensible both inside and outside the organization?

There are four primary steps in conducting an issues analysis:

1. Identify issues;

2. Prioritize issues;

3. Analyze issues; and,

4. Summarize issues.