A SWOT analysis mind map that leads to a decision

Set the subject of the analysis

The SWOT Analysis template is one of the 13 starters Canvasola ships with, filed under business in the gallery. It arrives as a root labeled SWOT with four branches: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The first two hold one child each, What we do well and Where we lag, and the other two hold Market openings and External risks. Four boxes and nothing filled in.

The root is where the analysis becomes specific. Press Enter or F2 and rename SWOT into the thing you are actually looking at: "our onboarding flow", "the neighbourhood coffee shop", "moving the team to Lisbon". A SWOT of nothing produces four lists of generalities that would be true of any company, which is why so many of them are worthless.

Say what decision the analysis serves while you are there. "Should we launch the paid tier?" or "Do we open a second site?" A map with a decision attached can be finished and acted on, while a map that surveys a subject can only be read.

• Name the subject and the decision in the root label
• A SWOT of something unnamed is four lists of generalities
• Rename the root with Enter or F2 before writing anything else
• Keep the decision visible on the map, not in your head

Separate internal from external

The first two branches are internal and the last two are external, and the template does not say so anywhere. Make the boundary visible in the words, then hold it with color. The 8-color palette plus a recent colors row gives you two colors for what you control and two for what you do not, and that rule is enough for any reader.

The test is simple. If you could change it by deciding to do something, it is internal. If it happens to you whatever you decide, it is external. A team that ships fast is a strength, a competitor that ships fast is a threat, and the same fact lands in different boxes depending on who controls it.

The first child of a branch inherits its parent's color and siblings cycle through the palette, so a colored map turns striped if you change colors by hand. Set the four branch colors deliberately instead: two for what you control, two for what you do not.

• Internal: Strengths and Weaknesses, the things you control
• External: Opportunities and Threats, the things that happen to you
• Two colors each rather than a color per box
• Say the test out loud before you start filling boxes

Name strengths with evidence

The Strengths branch holds a child called What we do well, and that child is where the honesty starts. Rename it, then give each strength its own child node carrying the proof: a number, a comparison, a piece of customer feedback, a run of years. "Great support team" is a claim, while "answers every ticket within a day for two years" is a strength you can plan around.

Evidence also stops strengths drifting into wishes. When the evidence is thin, the strength is a hope, and any plan built on it will disappoint. Put the source in the rich note of the child node so anybody reading the map later knows where the number came from.

Write strengths as things you would keep if you had to choose only one of them. If a strength is not worth keeping, it is a preference, and a preference belongs nowhere on the map.

• One child per strength, one line of evidence underneath
• A strength you cannot prove is a hope
• Keep the source of each number in the note
• Ask what you would keep if you had to pick one

Name weaknesses without softening them

Where we lag is the child under Weaknesses, and it is the easiest line on the whole map to write in a way that means nothing. "We could be faster" is a wish with a defect. "Support takes two days to answer and there is no triage" is a weakness somebody else could act on.

Write weaknesses the way a customer would describe them, because that is the version somebody else can believe. Add the child node for the specific gap, then the note for why it exists. A weakness with a cause attached turns into an improvement, while a weakness with only a name stays a complaint.

Keep the count honest, because the count is information in itself. Five real weaknesses beat twenty soft ones, and a list of eleven weaknesses usually means the business has one problem described in eleven different ways.

• Describe the gap the way a customer would describe it
• Name the cause, or the weakness stays a complaint
• Five honest weaknesses beat twenty soft ones
• Keep every weakness visible to the people who can fix it

Link threats to weaknesses

This is where the map earns its keep. A threat alone is a worry and a weakness alone is a gap, but a threat that lands on a specific weakness is a risk you can price. Use Create cross-link on the node menu to join a threat to the weakness it feeds, and the map draws a link tube between the two nodes.

A threat that connects to no weakness is usually not worth planning for, and a weakness that no threat touches is an irritation you have chosen to live with. Walking the links shows which of your four boxes is doing the real work, and it takes about two minutes.

Canvasola has no link-label editor, so name the relationship in the note of one of the two nodes: "this threat lands hardest on the onboarding gap". The cross-link guide explains the behavior, and a single map can hold up to 4,000 links.

• One link per threat, pointing at the weakness it feeds
• A threat with no link is usually not worth planning for
• Links carry no label, so describe them in a note
• Links work between any two nodes, not only siblings

Decide what the analysis changes

A SWOT that ends as four lists has not done its job. The map should end in a decision: which strength to lean on, which weakness to fix first, which opportunity to take, which threat to watch. Add a branch called Decision under the root, or write the decision in the note of the root, and say what changes because of it.

Then check it holds up. Press P for presentation mode and read the map as slides, the root first and then one slide per first-level branch. If the decision is not visible in that run, it is not really decided. The shortcut cheat sheet has the rest of the keys.

A radial layout suits a SWOT well, because the four boxes sit around the subject and you can read the whole analysis at once. Press L to toggle it, then A to auto-arrange and clear the manual positions the previous layout left behind.

• End with a decision, not with four lists
• State what changes because of the decision
• Read the map as slides in presentation mode
• L toggles the radial layout, A clears manual positions

Note: The four-box SWOT has a known weakness of its own: it invites a list rather than a choice. The brainstorm guide shows how to add the scoring step that turns a set of options into one decision.

A checklist you can reuse

• The root names the subject and the decision behind it
• Strengths and Weaknesses hold internal factors only
• Opportunities and Threats hold external factors only
• Every strength has a child node carrying evidence
• Every weakness is written as a gap rather than a complaint
• Each threat is cross-linked to the weakness it feeds
• The map ends with a decision and what changes because of it

Common mistakes to avoid

• ANALYZING something unnamed. A SWOT with the word SWOT at the root produces four lists that would fit any business. Name the subject in the root before you write a single line.
• Softening the weaknesses. "We could be faster" cannot be assigned to anybody. Write the gap the way a customer would describe it, and add the cause behind it.
• Strengths with no proof. A strength without a number, a comparison or a quote is a wish. Give each one a child node that carries the evidence.
• Treating threats as tasks. External factors cannot be fixed by deciding harder. Link each threat to a weakness you can genuinely work on instead.
• Ending on four lists. The analysis has to land somewhere. Add the decision and say what changes because of it, or the map will be read once and forgotten.

Frequently asked questions

Is the SWOT Analysis template enough on its own?

It is a good skeleton and a poor final map. The template gives you four branches with one child each, which is the right starting structure for a first pass, but the work sits in what you put under them and in the links you draw between the boxes.

How many items should go in each box?

Three to five per box is a workable amount. Fewer than three usually means you have not looked hard enough, and more than five means the box has swallowed a second topic. If one box runs long, split the analysis or move the extra items into a note.

What does a cross-link between a threat and a weakness do?

It draws a link tube between any two nodes, so you can see which weakness a threat lands on. That connection is what turns a list of worries into a set of risks, and the app has no link-label editor, so describe the relationship in the note of one of the two nodes.

Can I share the SWOT with other people?

Not as a live document. Canvasola has no collaboration and no published links, so export the map to PNG, SVG or a plain-text outline and send the file yourself, or save a .canv project file for the people who use Canvasola. Two people editing copies merge the results by hand.

This guide is part of the template guides collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.