Explanation:

Many organizations do a SWOT analysis at a company retreat, once every few years. That wasn’t really enough before 2020, and it’s definitely not enough now.  Your opportunities and threats are changing too often. You should be doing a SWOT analysis (and the scenario analysis that goes with it) a couple times a year. If you’re in rapid growth mode or in a very volatile market, you should be doing it even more frequently. 

When I was at CDNow, we were doubling every 6 months. Normally strengths and weaknesses change slowly over time — much more slowly than external factors.  When growth is inorganic like ours was, your strengths and weaknesses can change rapidly. You need to redo your SWOT more frequently because what was once a strength (say, being small and nimble) may suddenly no longer be one. If you don’t keep up with your understanding of the changes, you won’t be able to scale your processes or evolve your culture or figure out how to lead a team, to delegate when you need to.