Strategic What!?

Do you want to build widely successful strategies for your organization this year? Then, try something new in your next thirty days.

Instead of starting initiatives with strategic analysis and planning, start them by validating their key objectives.

Objectives First

Successful strategists are the ones who deliver great results. If you closely look at their work, you will see that their differential is not the frameworks they use or the models they’ve created. What makes them truly unique is that they’ve achieved remarkable goals. They’ve excelled at clearly defining objectives and achieving them.

Frameworks, methodologies, and models are a means to an end. Finding out what the real customer needs are for your projects is where you can differentiate yourself.

This is especially true in situations where people are involved in recurring projects. They know what needs to be done and know what is important; however, they are unable to articulate their project goals and have no idea how their efforts will bring value to their internal and external customers.

It is your job as a strategist to find out what those true goals are and validate them. This is extremely important because knowing those goals will help you measure the effectiveness of the strategies you create.

Clear Goals – Clear Destination

I often use a great analogy to better understand the impact of clear objectives in a project.

Imagine a busy harbor full of cargo ships. Ships arrive, are loaded or unloaded, and then leave the harbour heading towards their next destination.

When a ship is about to leave, a lot of work goes into preparing for its departure: paperwork, import/export permits, maintenance records, you name it. However, besides knowing what is being transported, an essential question is asked during this process: “Where to?” What is the ship’s destination?

Once a cargo ship leaves the harbour, it’s gone! The moment a fully loaded cargo ship undocks, it can’t go back.

Unless something very odd happens, that ship will navigate to its final destination.

Knowing its destination, the captain can find the best route to reach its final port. It is possible to reach it using the shortest path, or even have a few stopovers to refuel and load a few more containers along the way. Destination tells you where the end of the road is.

What is Your Final Destination?

From a strategic perspective, you should challenge any planning effort done without clearly considering the end goals of the project. If the initiative goals are not easily identifiable, it is time to say “Captain, stop all engines!”

No matter how good a strategy is, no matter how much effort has already been invested in implementing it, and, at worst, how successful the strategy is perceived, if no goals are set, you have no way to know if you are achieving the desired project results.

The most dangerous side effect that can arise from working on initiatives without clear goals is that you may never know if things are going wrong, until it is too late. Understanding the key objectives of an initiative will help you achieve them more quickly and help you identify if things are not progressing as expected.

To illustrate, when you know that your cargo ship is in the Los Angeles port and that your final destination is Shanghai, you will be able to design the best route possible between both ports. That will help you set the parameters for choosing the appropriate path. If someone suggests your ship should to go across the Panama Canal, you have strong arguments why you shouldn’t use that route. This is relevant because you know precisely the project’s objectives and can convincingly argue why your ship should go one way or another.

You may have heard that popular saying that goes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.” Nothing is closer to the truth.

Ask the Tough Questions

Before leaving your harbour, start your strategic work by asking the tough questions to uncover key objectives:

• What are the key objectives of this initiative?
• Are you addressing the real needs of your organization or are you just creating to do lists?
• How will you know you have achieved your objectives? How will you know you have reached your end goal/destination?
• Are there any internal adjustments that need to be resolved before moving ahead with these objectives? (e.g. conflicts, resource allocation, knowledge transfer)
• Will these objectives affect any other teams? Do you clearly know how to address these issues before starting? (e.g. conflicts, timelines, interests, roadmaps, products)
• What if you don’t achieve your objectives?

Identifying your project goals at the early stages of your initiative will save you considerable time and effort.

Be a Driving Force

Do your homework and create momentum. Help others articulate their objectives and have crystal clear goals for projects you are involved in. Drive the process!

If you are struggling to articulate what your project objectives are, don’t give up. You still have a couple options. You may be asking questions to the wrong people and may need to go up the command chain to get relevant information. Alternatively, the objectives you are dealing with may require further investigation and research. In this case, the investigation becomes the immediate objective until something more substantial is defined.

Write down the agreed objectives and widely communicate them. You may be surprised how many people react by saying that they don’t agree with the proposed objectives. Often this becomes an opportunity to increase the alignment of common goals within all involved groups.

In any case, you will save a huge amount of work by asking questions early in your strategy formulation process, rather than waiting to do it later.

In Your Next Thirty Days

Try a new approach. Act now and in thirty days you will find your organization working in a much more cohesive way towards common goals. Uncovering objectives will allow you to build the best strategies of your career and to reach remarkable results for your organization. Trust me!

Knowing your destination before leaving the harbour means smooth sailing for you and the ones who travel with you.

>> Please feel free to share your thoughts on how you validate your project objectives. What types of questions do you usually ask to uncover your customer’s objectives? What worked for you in the past that you could share with us? What didn’t work? It would be great to hear about your experience. Please feel free to comment or send me a direct email.

Photo Credit: Phillip Capper