SWOT analysis

Rachx

So being a Business Development Manager I have been playing with spreads to give me insight before meetings with prospective and existing customers - with a bit of success.

I have now tried the spread for relationships but feel I need an added card- maybe an outcome card or something? Any thoughts welcome.

Basically the spread is a square of four cards and they can be read separately and then together as various pairs and then again as whole.

Cards 1-2 S-W
3-4 O-T

So standard swot analysis Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

Reading it - as separate cards but then looking at pairings so diagonally, how Strengths can help combat Threats for example.

Has anyone any feelings about laying a fifth card maybe as a wild card or outcome card etc... particularly with regard to relationships and not just situations? Thank you x
 

Barleywine

My current practice with extra cards is to lay a wild card face-down to the side when I deal the spread. I look at the rest of the cards to see if any of them seems to be unclear or troublesome, than I pair the wild card up with it to see if that offers any help. In your case, if any of the SWOT positions lacks definition or clarity, I would turn over the wild card and apply it there.

Another thing I've done is create a small "follow-up" spread that I can plug the problem card into as a significator, and see where it takes me.
 

Rachx

Thank you - I guess the wild card could serve as an outcome/base/clarifier or whatever as and when required. I'm doing this spread for sales situations and I haven't needed an extra card because I've just analysed the situation if you like, got the snapshot before I go to my meeting.
I have recently been playing with it for relationships type readings but I seem to feel I need an "in conclusion" card or a "where is it going" or something. Could a wild card meet these ? I mean I couldn't define what position the card would represent beforehand- only after reading the spread if you know what I mean? I don't know if I am being clear! It's a kind of snapshot of the relationship and I am not sure what else is needed (i.e. An extra card) to get full value from the spread ! Am I asking too much of my lovely cards?!
 

Rachx

Oh wow perfect thank you [emoji4] bigger and better xx
 

Barleywine

Thank you - I guess the wild card could serve as an outcome/base/clarifier or whatever as and when required. I'm doing this spread for sales situations and I haven't needed an extra card because I've just analysed the situation if you like, got the snapshot before I go to my meeting.
I have recently been playing with it for relationships type readings but I seem to feel I need an "in conclusion" card or a "where is it going" or something. Could a wild card meet these ? I mean I couldn't define what position the card would represent beforehand- only after reading the spread if you know what I mean? I don't know if I am being clear! It's a kind of snapshot of the relationship and I am not sure what else is needed (i.e. An extra card) to get full value from the spread ! Am I asking too much of my lovely cards?!

I use the wild card strictly as extra information. If I wanted an outcome from four evenly-balanced cards and didn't want to expand the spread by adding a fifth card, I would first consider using a quintessence.
 

Rachx

Yes okay makes sense - would you subtract the values of the weakness and threat cards from the opportunities and Strengths cards?
It would give a negative value if the outcome isn't so good and a positive value if the outcome is good.
I'd been going on the cards themselves - so majors Trump minors for example - so if I had World in opportunity and an ace in threats then I would see the opportunities as outweighing the threats. Same for Strengths /weaknesses. Traditionally a quint would be the sum of all the card values, I am just wondering about the value in comparing sides as it were. Would you ever do this?
 

Barleywine

Yes okay makes sense - would you subtract the values of the weakness and threat cards from the opportunities and Strengths cards?
It would give a negative value if the outcome isn't so good and a positive value if the outcome is good.
I'd been going on the cards themselves - so majors Trump minors for example - so if I had World in opportunity and an ace in threats then I would see the opportunities as outweighing the threats. Same for Strengths /weaknesses. Traditionally a quint would be the sum of all the card values, I am just wondering about the value in comparing sides as it were. Would you ever do this?

Yes, there have been a few spreads I created that use "competing quints." The most recent one I can think of is the group conflict resolution spread that I applied to the situation between North Korea, the US, Japan and China. Each of the sides had three cards that I turned into quints, and then did a comparison between the four roll-up cards.

The only subtractions I do are for reversed cards, since it allows me to keep zero for the Fool, and also to have a reversed quint card. You can never get to zero with normal numerological reduction.

But as you say, I would first look at the main cards in a comparative way before adding nuances.
 

Rachx

So a negative number would be the quint card reversed. Interesting I will try that out. Eg minus one is magician Rx - thank you xx
 

blue_fusion

The fifth card sounds interesting, like a conclusion card or overview card.

I have tried toying around with SWOT, expanding it a bit more. There's a lot of potential in it as a spread, and it seems pretty popular with querents who are asking for career-related readings: http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=30523

-Ly