Purpose: To agree on key organizational strengths to exploit and maximize; To agree on the key organizational weaknesses to minimize or eliminate; To agree on what opportunities that are external to the organization; To agree on what external threats, if any, to protect from.
Outcome:.List of top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Equipment: 4 – 8 sheets of flipchart paper, Post-its, Sharpies
Timing: 45 minutes
Prepare 4 flipchart papers thusly:
And place them on the wall or on easels.
Explain SWOT (15 minutes)
The SWOT is our final and most important activity before we start to develop a vision for what may be in the future. First let me explain what a SWOT is though many of you may already know.
The SW or Strengths and Weaknesses refer to all of the internal aspects of the organization. A Strength could be the things that work well with the processes, the people, the product, the training, the policies, culture, resources, etc. Weaknesses are the things that don’t work well with things internal to the organization such as its processes, the people, the product, the training, the policies, culture, resources, etc.
The OT or Opportunities and Threats refers to the external but influential aspects of the organization. Opportunities are those things to make use of or exploit since they may help to support the mission. Threats are those things to protect from since they may detract from fulfilling the mission.
Strengths (which is internal) and Opportunities (which is external) are things that support the mission and Weaknesses (which is internal) or Threat (which is external) detract from it.
So when creating a strategic or plan. We use what supports the mission and find ways to minimize or eliminate what diminishes the mission.
Now we are going to identify the key things to support/create and minimize/eliminate.
Take out your Sharpies and Post-its. Write on the Post-it's the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats you perceive. One Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat per post-it.
You will have 10 minutes to generate as many as you can write. That is 2.5 minutes per S.W.O.T.
Once you finish your writing please place them on the appropriate flipchart.
You may need to add paper.
What are your questions? Answer any question.
Ok, start! Set the timer for 10 minutes
Option: You may have the group work in groups of two. If so have two people who haven’t worked together yet during this strategic planning process work together.
Cluster: Optional (10 Minutes)
If there are many S.W.O.T.s then you may want to weed out the redundant ones and then cluster the ones with the same general idea. You can do this by asking 2 or 3 people to volunteer to do this. Generally speaking, you do not need to do this.
Find Top S.W.O.T.s. Give everyone 4 – 6 dots (20 Minutes).
Please vote on the S.W.O.T.s that may have the biggest impact on fulfilling our organization’s mission, if we did something about it. As before no double voting and beware of voting on something just because others have voted on it.
This is optional but highly encouraged: You may have the group work in groups of two. If so, put people in different groups of 2 (as earlier) and reiterate You must all agree on the vote.
Discuss the result with the entire group.