Strategic Planning Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

What Are Objectives and Are They Different From Strategic Goals?

Objectives are usually specific statements (they are actually a particular kind of goal) that contribute to the achievement of "bigger" goals. In other words they are actually goals, but they are more specific. Another term for objectives within a strategic planning framework is to call these "enabling goals", since, if you hit all your objectives, they will contribute to the achievement of the larger strategic goal(s), they enable.

In practice, though we use the word goals, rather than make the distinction. It's more than a semantic difference, but, trying to decide what is a goal, versus an objective can bog down the strategic planning process.

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