Setting strategic goals is essential for keeping your team and organisation on the right path. By establishing aims that align with wider objectives, you create a ‘guiding north star’ that will keep you and your teams on track.
Today we’re exploring the purpose and benefits of strategic goals, and how you can set the right goals for your project.
A strategic goal is an objective that an organisation strives to achieve. It can be specific, such as increasing production of a specific product by 50%, or broad, such as increasing market share over a competitor.
Strategic goals come in many forms, with each one being measured in a unique way. It’s essential that your strategic goals can be measured to gauge the progress being made.
Strategic goals are often the goalposts by which the success of your project or company is measured. Using pre-defined metrics to measure the progress of your goals helps to evidence whether or not they are being achieved.
Setting goals without hard metrics to measure them against means it’ll be harder to determine whether you are achieving them. Specific metrics also help to narrow down areas that need attention, assisting you in planning the appropriate actions.
Common metrics used to measure the success of your strategy goals include:
As we’ve established, strategic goals can be set against any area that requires improvement. Specific goals typically break down into the following types.
Financial strategic goals relate to a range of money-focused metrics and are perhaps the most easily measured of goals. These include:
An example of common financial strategic goals could be:
Growth strategic goals refer to how the overall business develops. These include:
Examples of growth-based strategic goals include:
Employee-centred strategic goals relate to how your employees complete their work and engage with the organisation. These include:
Examples of employee-focused strategic goals could be:
Customer-focused strategic goals are based around your customers, from total number and retention to satisfaction and value perception.
Examples of customer-focused strategic goals include:
Strategic goals centred around products or services can relate to many areas, from revenue and efficiency to customer satisfaction and value. These include:
Examples of strategic goals focused on products or services include:
Strategic goals centred around technology can vary in scope and requirement and often relate to the adoption of new technologies. These include:
Examples of technology-focused strategic goals include:
Setting strategic goals around internal capability or productivity are essential for becoming more effective as an organisation. These could include:
Examples of specific strategic goals relating to productivity include:
Innovation-centred strategic goals relate to how your organisation is developing new, better methods of working and delivering your service or products. These can include:
Some specific examples of innovation-based goals include:
Before we go any further, let’s clear up the terminology around strategic goals.
Strategic planning is the process of formulating and defining your strategic goals. It involves the implementation and measurement of your goals and the methods you put in place to achieve them.
OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) are usually shorter-term, more specific targets than strategic goals. For example, ‘increase product A revenue by 30%’ could be an OKR, while ‘increase total business revenue by 50%’ could be your strategic goal.
The difference between strategic objectives and goals is primarily semantic, with the terms often being used interchangeably. However, the term ‘objective’ is usually more specific than ‘goals’, so it’s up to your organisation to determine the terminology that suits you.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are typically metrics that are constantly measured and compared to determine performance. While your strategic goal might be to increase revenue, the KPI could be the percentage of time that daily revenue exceeds a particular threshold.
Follow these steps to set the right strategic goals for your organisation.
Firstly, you need to be aware of what your organisation wants to achieve in broad terms. What is the overall vision? How do you want the organisation to develop or change in the near future? Once you know that, the path to your strategic goals becomes clearer.
Based on your overall aims, it’s time to distill these down into a set of goals that are achievable, measurable, and present the best opportunity for improvement. For example, if two potential goals exist, and one is more likely than the other to generate positive change, prioritise that one.
The SMART method is a tried-and-tested way of defining goals that achieve the desired results. SMART goals are:
For example: Improve the operational efficiency of our R&D department by 20% in the next 6 months through the adoption of new technologies and training.
When communicating your strategic goals to your organisation, consider the level of buy-in they are likely to get. If you can demonstrate the value of these goals for everyone involved, your teams will be more likely to accept the changes involved in achieving these goals. Everyone needs to know their role and the importance of the overall objective.
Measuring your progress consistently is the best way to determine how effective your goals are, and subsequently, the methods by which they are being pursued. Check your KPIs on a regular basis, book reviews at key milestones, and don’t be afraid to make changes if the desired progress isn’t being made.
Now you know how to set your goals, it’s time to determine how to keep them, and everyone involved, on track.
Firstly, regular measurement of goals is essential for judging performance. Choose the most appropriate method of tracking progress, whether it be by work completed or changes implemented. Determine the right KPIs for your goals and check on them often.
Each strategic goal will require some specific actions to achieve it. For example, if your goal is to develop a new product, the specific actions will involve research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and more. Map out each action required to achieve your strategic goal and plan out the best way to tackle each one.
Based on the actions you define for each goal, you can create a schedule by which the strategic goal is worked on. For example, if a strategic goal is set to be completed in a year, plan out how long each action will take before the deadline and build your schedule around that.
Read our blog on How to Create a Project Management Schedule to learn more.
The best way of keeping strategic goals on track is to increase the ability of everyone involved to move the needle. By empowering your teams in the right way, you can make them more efficient, more effective, and more engaged with the project they’re working on.
Empowering your teams is a formidable method of keeping your goals on track. Learn more about it here: Employee Empowerment: Everything You Need To Know
As you work towards the fulfillment of your strategic goals, you’ll begin to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. You’ll gain an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your teams and processes, and be able to adjust them for future projects. This is what Verto can help you with.
Verto is a cloud-based work management solution designed to keep you and your teams on track. It offers a wide range of tools that you can use to manage the fulfillment of your strategic goals, including:
If you think these tools can help you achieve your strategic goals, get in touch with the Verto team today, or book a demo to test how Verto can help you.