How to Make Your SWOT Sessions Useful
A SWOT analysis is a classic consultant tool for business planning.
In my experience, it’s also one of the most inefficient.
I agree with the idea of SWOT—identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. But in practice, the execution nearly always falls short.
Here are 4 things you can fix today to make a SWOT analysis actually usable in your business.
1. Prepare in advance.
The first hour of a traditional SWOT session usually looks like this: asking people to brainstorm, having everyone read their ideas aloud, and watching while a facilitator writes each idea on a whiteboard or flipchart.
Start by asking your participants to think about the SWOT exercise before they walk into the session. Group brainstorm has some value, and you can still allow a few quiet minutes for people to collect their thoughts.
But if you plant the seeds in advance, then participants bring a different mindset. They observe what’s happening around them at work, small things that might not bubble up when they’re sitting in a conference room. Those small things can be high-leverage during a SWOT analysis.
This alone can shorten the session significantly, leaving more time for discussion (or for everyone to get back to work).
Which brings me to point number two…
2. Take the SWOT online.
I am a diehard flip chart guy, but I’ve come around to the efficiency of documenting everything on a computer instead of writing it by hand. It’s beautiful to see a room full of great ideas documented on whiteboards or flipcharts, but the tradeoff in efficiency and ease is worth it. Have everyone prepopulate a shared document with their ideas, and use that as your starting point instead.
Whether you’re virtual or in-person, upgrade your technology to cut out the dead space in the meeting.
These two things alone will save nearly an hour. Again, the point isn’t to make the session as short as possible; it’s to cut out inefficiency and focus on the true value of the exercise.
3. Don’t give every area equal attention.
The logical way to go through a SWOT analysis is to divvy up discussion time for each of the categories: 30 minutes for Strengths, Weaknesses, and so on.
In practice, the amount of time you’ll need to spend is much more lopsided. Especially when it comes to Strengths. Strengths can be helpful to acknowledge (see point 4 below), but teams rarely end up taking action based on what’s in the Strengths category. It’s usually widely known information, what you already do well.
Unless there’s something unexpected that appears in this area, plan to lightly touch on Strengths and then move on to the other three areas (but that unexpected something will more often show up in Opportunities).
It might surprise you, but really successful companies don’t spend much time on their Weaknesses, either. They acknowledge they have them, but they also recognize that an organization can’t be good at everything. If the Weaknesses are acceptable or even part of the company’s DNA, don’t belabor them or beat yourself up for your failings. Acknowledge and move on.
4. Categorize, then discuss.
Try to discuss everything in your SWOT analysis (even if you move quickly through Strengths) is crazy-making. You’ll run out of time, your team will get tired, and you probably won’t move enough things forward to take concrete action.
Here’s what to do instead. I call it playing Plinko.
Figure out your categories. I recommend the following based on our system, The Growth Method:
Acknowledge. Use it as perspective; no action needed.
Kill. Not valuable or relevant right now.
Discuss. To talk through during the current session.
CO List. Discuss, but not today. CO stands for Challenges and Opportunities. Add to the CO List when something needs more conversation to determine a next step, if any.
90 days execution. It’s obvious that action needs to be taken on this item within 90 days.
1 year execution. It’s obvious that action needs to be taken on this item within 1 year.
3 year execution. It’s obvious that action needs to be taken on this item within 3 years.
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Here’s what will happen if you make these fixes to your SWOT analysis.
1. You’ll accomplish more during a SWOT session in about half the time.
2. You’ll discuss just a few key items during the meeting and make meaningful progress in those areas.
3. You’ll capture all the other points so that nothing is forgotten or slips through the cracks—but everything is addressed at the appropriate time for the business.
Less time, better results. SWOT becomes fun again instead of where brainstorming goes to die.
Try it in your business, and let me know which fix was the most valuable for your team.
If you need help facilitating a SWOT session, reach out to us.
