Strategic Planning Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

What Are The Characteristics of "Good" Strategic Goals and Objectives Within Strategic Planning?

Since strategic goals are so important in linking strategic planning to strategy, and in turn to operational or tactical planning, they need to be defined effectively. What are the characteristics of good strategic goals?

Measurable: Strategic goals and objectives should be measurable so you can track success.

Specificity: Strategic goals are more specific than, let's say, your role statement, but then can't be too specific either, since you don't want too many of them in your strategic plan. So, as an example, you might write "increase market share by ten percent", but you clearly aren't going to want to write "hire Jack the mechanic". There's no absolute way to say how specific in any objective way.

Importance: Strategic goals need to be important to the company's success. There may be hundreds of goals you could define as part of your strategic plan, but indentify the most important. Less important "enabling goals" need not be lost, but can be included in operational plans.

Reflective: Your strategic goals need to reflect the analytical work done in the rest of the strategic planning process. They need to be based on your best understanding of your business environment, strengths, abilities, opportunities and so on. That, in fact, is WHY we do all this work in strategic planning before we set strategic goals.