Red and Green Traffic Lights: The TOWS Model in Practice

You have prioritised your SWOT. You have made the difficult opt-outs. Now what? This is where many organisations get stuck. They have a beautifully prioritised overview of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — and no idea what to do with it.

The TOWS model, introduced by management professor Heinz Weihrich in 1982, solves this problem by combining the SWOT categories into concrete strategic actions.

Green traffic lights: low-hanging fruit

A green traffic light arises from the combination of an external opportunity and an internal strength. The organisation has something it is good at, and the market offers a chance to use it. This is a business opportunity that should be pursued.

For example: if your customers demand products with a long service life (opportunity) and you have a strong brand known for reliability (strength), then the action could be a go-to-market plan with communication that positions long service life as environmental responsibility.

A green traffic light: Strength + Opportunity = An action to pursue.

Red traffic lights: burning platforms

A red traffic light arises when an external threat meets an internal weakness. The plug has been pulled out of the bathtub — if you do not act, the organisation will run out of water.

For example: if competitors are gaining ground (threat) and you do not have a complete picture of the competitive situation (weakness), then the action is clear: develop a process for monitoring the market and competitive landscape.

Full traceability

The genius of this approach is what the book calls "full traceability". Every action can be traced back through the TOWS combination, through the prioritised SWOT, all the way to the original analysis. When someone asks why a particular action is on the plan, you can show exactly where it came from. This is a very disciplined way of working — and employees appreciate understanding why management prioritises the way it does.

"If you do not translate your strategy work into something concrete that you can act on, it is just dead prioritised knowledge." — Strategy is Tangible