Is SWOT Analysis a good strategic planning method to evaluate the viability or the health of a project or a venture?

I think a SWOT would be a good starting point. A SWOT analysis would help you see what lies in each of the areas. After you identify the SWOTs, it may take some additional research to see how threatening the threats are to the plan. As well as how great the opportunity is through market research.

The hardest part about a SWOT are objectively seeing weaknesses.

Best of luck. I look forward to what others have to say on this topic too.

Yes. Any good strategic ploanning process involves some quality review of the present organization. It is important to realize and evaluate both positive and negative traits of the company.

Keep the time you spend on this task reasonable. In my experience too much of the strategic planning process was spent do a SWOT. Generally the results are you see most traits as positive and come up with few weaknesses or threats.

Good luck.

The greatest part of a SWOT is being able to turn the weaknesses into opportunities and determining the best way to leverage the threats. After doing a thorough SWOT you can get into your competitive advantage and what you can do to turn this venture into reality or scrap it.

The time and money consumed in creating a SWOTanalysis will always be far less than a failed concept launch. Take the time to do it right. Include a competitive review and gather market research. The Strength you believe you have may not be the perception of your customers. The same may be true for your perceived Weakness.

Not so sure that SWOT is the best way to analyze a project or business. My own experiences on SWOT is that I have seen too many SWOTs on the chart (maybe 40 items), no prioritization of the SWOTS and a lack of clarity on understanding customer level information- lifetime value, renewals rates, loyalty. I would start with customers and then derive SWOTs from that- it make sit much more actionable.