How do I do a STEEPLE analysis?

S: Social
T: Technological
E: Economic
E: Environmental
P: Political
L: Legal
E: Ethical

The standard approach is to run through each area of STEEPLE, and examine external factors that are relevant to your product or service. Each factor can be an opportunity or a threat. Prioritise these factors, and work out an action plan to address each opportunity or threat.

STEEPLE analysis is used to discover and act on the external factors that might effect the success of your business. It is a list of areas to work through so and identify opportunities and threats, so that you can make plans accordingly.

1. Get your team together: Assemble your team, and if you can, include some impartial, trusted colleagues from other businesses.
2. Explain the purpose: To brainstorm and then prioritise actions relating to external factors, in order to maximise product success.
3. Brainstorm STEEPLE: Use a STEEPLE cheat sheet to prompt the team. Run through each area – S, T, E, E, P, L, E – recording threats and opportunities.
4. Prioritise: Arrange the factors from the brainstorm into the ones that the team feel are a) most impactful, and b) are most likely to materialise.
5. Take action: Plan and delegate actions to mitigate the threats and to exploit the opportunities for each prioritised item.

A STEEPLE analysis is most useful to generate a thorough view of external factors when you are planning to take a new product to market. It can also be used at any time to refresh your plans relating to external factors, as the world is constantly changing around us.

STEEPLE follows the same principles as PESTLE (also called “PESTEL”), with the addition of “Ethical” factors. So while STEEPLE is not “better”, it has become more appealing in the 2020s.