Step Four: Developing the Goal Components of the Plan Overview
How does a Team begin to determine goals for a strategic plan? Well, start at the beginning. In Step One of the process, the Team worked through identifying and analyzing problems and issues of concern using the 5 Whys Process. Step Two, a SWOT discussion, provided a way to lay out assets and barriers, resulting in a set of potential strategies (Combining, Matching, Converting) for using internal and external factors to the Team’s best advantage. In Step Three, the Team came to consensus on a Vision for the work ahead.
After the results of these planning processes are established, and repeated when new goals for the plan are considered in Steps One, Two and Three, the Team will spend most of its time in Step Four, first establishing goals and then implementing them. The Team’s plan is dynamic: and will constantly evolve, change and be updated. The plan is the centerpiece for each and every Team discussion and action.
Setting goals is the process of:
- Deciding what the Team wants to accomplish that moves closer to achieving the Vision
- Determining how to address the root cause of problems the Team identified
- Devising a plan that mines assets and neutralizes barriers
- Defining the baseline and progress data that serve as the means for gauging and proving progress.
Goals are crafted to close the gap between the end result (the Vision) and current status (SWOT, other baseline measures). “Goals” is the component of your Team’s strategic plan that encompasses its essence and substance. A statement of the Goal itself is but one component. The other components of goals provide for the details of how the plan will be implemented.
An overview of each component of “Goals” is described in the document ‘Brief Overview of Each Goal Component’