Framework Application Checklist

Before you send an analysis, score each framework you name on a five-rung ladder, point to the page where it changed a conclusion, and remove the ones that did not.

Practice, not research: the five-rung ladder and the score threshold are rules of thumb. The frameworks it polices carry mixed or contested evidence: Five Forces (Porter, 1980; McGahan & Porter, 1997) and the resource-based view (Barney, 1991) are mixed, SWOT is weak or contested (Puyt et al., 2023).

Use it when:

• Your report, plan or deck names one or more frameworks (Five Forces, SWOT, VRIO, a funnel, a canvas) and goes to someone who will act on it.
• You suspect a framework is in the draft because it looks professional, not because it changed anything.
• You review someone else's analysis and want a fair, specific way to ask "what did this framework do?"

Skip it when:

• You have not done the analysis yet and need a structure for it: use 2.12 3-Step Analysis Template.
• The problem is the argument, not the frameworks: check the reasoning with 2.17 Critical Thinking Prompt Sheet.

The frameworks analysts reach for most often carry mixed or contested evidence, and none of their value comes with the name. Industry analysis explains a real but bounded share of profit differences, and what is specific to the business matters more (Porter, 1980; McGahan & Porter, 1997). The resource-based view has a large research base and an equally large critical one, while VRIO used as a scoring checklist is a teaching device with little direct testing (Barney, 1991). SWOT's origins needed a historical study to untangle (Puyt et al., 2023), and its misuse is the textbook warning.

So the worth of a framework sits in the application. A framework that is named but never fed with data gives the look of analysis without the substance, and it borrows authority the work has not earned. That is why naming and explaining are the cheap rungs of the ladder here. Credit starts only when the framework is filled with your own data, produces a conclusion you would not otherwise reach and shapes a recommendation. A framework that does none of that should go, not be decorated.

Name the analysis and its reader. Then list each framework and the question it is supposed to answer for this decision.

Strong answer: "Five Forces: how much of our margin can new suppliers and large buyers take from us in the next two years?" Not: "Five Forces: to analyze the industry."

Analysis, reader and the decision it feeds:

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

The Gothenburg bakery from 2.1 has a draft report for the April board meeting on whether to keep the small-cafe route. The sales lead wrote it with a SWOT, a Five Forces section and a customer funnel.

Step 1: Five Forces should answer "how much pricing power do we have with small cafes?" SWOT and the funnel had no question written next to them.

Step 2: Five Forces reached rung 4. SWOT reached rung 2: four boxes of general statements. The funnel reached rung 3: real order data, but no conclusion.

Step 3: Five Forces, section 2: cafes can switch to two other bakeries within a week. Conclusion: a price rise would push cafes out. It drives the recommendation to change the minimum order, not the price.

Step 4: SWOT ticked "textbook copy" and "data-free judgment". The funnel ticked "no conclusion".

Step 5: SWOT cut. The funnel fixed: it now shows that most cafes stop after their third month, which supports the minimum-order change. The report is two pages shorter.