STEEP Analysis

Comment l'animer

1. 1

   Set up five sections on a whiteboard or template: Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political.

2. 2

   Brief the team on each dimension with a short prompt: What trends, disruptions, or forces in this category are relevant to our strategy?

3. 3

   Social: Brainstorm demographic shifts, cultural changes, workforce trends, consumer behaviour evolution, and social movements that affect your context.

4. 4

   Technological: Map emerging technologies, digital disruptions, automation impacts, connectivity changes, and platform shifts.

5. 5

   Economic: Identify macroeconomic trends, interest rate environments, trade dynamics, labour market shifts, and sector-specific economic pressures.

6. 6

   Environmental: Scan climate risks and opportunities, energy transition dynamics, resource constraints, regulatory responses to ecological change, and consumer sustainability expectations.

7. 7

   Political: Survey regulatory changes, geopolitical shifts, government policy directions, and political risk in key markets.

8. 8

   Synthesise: Rate each factor by impact and uncertainty. Identify the 5–7 most strategically significant factors. Discuss implications for your strategy, risks to monitor, and opportunities to explore.

Conseils

• STEEP is most valuable as a precursor to scenario planning or a SWOT analysis — the external factors you identify here feed directly into Opportunities and Threats.

• Don't let one dimension dominate: if a team only generates Technology factors, assign someone to steelman the Environmental and Social dimensions.

• Use news sources, trend reports, and sector research before the session to prime the discussion.

Variantes

Extend to STEEPLE by adding a Legal dimension for regulated industries. Run a 'Future STEEP' where each factor is assessed for direction and speed of change over the next 5–10 years. Combine with the Futures Wheel to trace second-order effects of the most impactful STEEP factors.