3-Step Analysis Template

Describe first with facts only, then evaluate those facts against a clear standard, then recommend who should do what by when. The value is in keeping the three apart.

Practice, not research: describe, evaluate, recommend is an untested teaching tool that follows the revised Bloom's taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). Industry structure analysis rests on mixed evidence (Porter, 2008), SWOT is weak or contested as research (Puyt et al., 2023) and the SMART acronym has no empirical base of its own (Doran, 1981). The number of facts and recommendations is a rule of thumb.

Use it when:

• You must analyze a company, a unit, a competitor or a situation and write it up for someone else.
• A discussion keeps mixing what is true with what people think about it.
• You have an opinion already and want to check whether the facts support it.

Skip it when:

• You have a vague worry and no clear question yet: start with 2.1 Problem & Question Framing.
• You need to compare several options on weighted criteria: use 2.11 Options & Recommendations or 2.13 Comparison Grid.

Describe, evaluate, recommend is a teaching tool, not a tested method. Its logic follows the revised taxonomy of learning objectives, where evaluating and creating are higher-order steps that depend on accurate understanding first (Krathwohl, 2002). You cannot fairly judge what you have not described, and you should not prescribe what you have not judged. No study shows that the pattern produces better analyses. What it does is keep apart steps that analysts tend to blur, so a reader can see where facts end and judgment begins.

The frameworks you bring in carry their own records. Industry structure analysis (Porter, 2008) has mixed support: industry effects on performance exist but are smaller than differences between firms. SWOT is a practitioner tool whose origins historians had to reconstruct (Puyt et al., 2023). The SMART standard is an acronym with no theory or evidence of its own (Doran, 1981), useful as a completeness check only. So Step 2 bans judgment words and asks for a source per fact, Step 3 ties every judgment to a fact, and Step 4 asks for an owner and a date.

Say what you are analyzing, what decision or question the analysis serves, and who will read it. The reader decides how deep you go and which words you use.

Strong answer: "A cooperative grocery store in a small town in northern Finland, after a discount chain opened nearby. For the board's decision in May on how to respond. Readers: the board and the store manager."

What I am analyzing:

Why it matters (the decision or question it serves):

Audience:

Illustrative example: the business, the roles and all numbers are made up.

A cooperative grocery store in a small town in northern Finland lost customers after a discount chain opened on the edge of town. The board asks the store manager for an analysis before its May meeting.

Step 2: (1) Weekly customers fell from about 1,900 to 1,600 in six months. (2) A basket of twenty staples costs more than at the chain. (3) Fresh bread and local fish sell as before. (4) Members still make up most of weekly sales. (5) Three local producers have asked to supply the store.

Step 3: Strength: a loyal member base (fact 4). Weakness: staple prices (fact 2). Opportunity: local products the chain does not carry (facts 3, 5). Threat: households that shop on price are leaving (fact 1). Overall: viable but needs improvement.

Step 4: Primary: member prices on staples, funded by a wider local range. Actions: the store manager signs three producers by June; the board chair announces member prices at the spring meeting. Risk of acting: margins fall before the local range pays off. Risk of doing nothing: further customer loss.

Step 5: All boxes ticked except one: the board treasurer asks for the margin effect of member prices, which goes back to Step 2 as a missing fact.