Is SWOT worth the effort?

SWOT.

An old strategy framework from the sixties (which can be traced back to its origins at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the US) where business executives were encouraged to gather in groups and jot down their division's / product's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

We've all been in a session where this thing has been suggested and have all done the same eyeball roll in response.

From the lists that are produced by group consensus thanks to the use of the framework, an organisation is then meant to align all of the right elements up in each of the segments to identify a clear path to achieve success in a changing contextual landscape.

Apart from SWOT being incredibly simplistic in its one-layer deep request for analysis of opportunities and threats; whatever 'core competencies' an organisation can possibly hang its hat on today, will undoubtedly quickly become irrelevant as the world changes at speed.

Besides the most leverageable competency a business can possibly have to enable it to be more future-ready is the capability to continuously learn. And if you're learning all of the time, your skillset develops continuously.

SWOT is one of those frameworks that may have some basic use as a tool to encourage dialogue within organisations, but it falls well-short of sufficient for most strategy purposes and is not appropriate for the environment in which most businesses operate these days.