Two competing 1965 origin claims are on record (a Stanford Research Institute Long Range Planning Service team versus a Harvard Business School textbook), and a 2023 academic history (Puyt, Lie and Wilderom) rejected the Harvard claim as an academic urban legend while crediting the Stanford team. The popular business account nonetheless credits Albert S. Humphrey personally; his own documented record shows he worked on a team led by Robert Stewart, not as sole author.
What would resolve this A primary-source institutional record from the Stanford Research Institute naming the individual contributions of its Long Range Planning Service team members on the SOFT/SWOT framework, rather than a secondary business-press account that defaults to crediting Humphrey alone.
OpenBusiness HistoryWikipedia, SWOT Analysis