Not each business objective is destined to be successfully reached. You may have a startup, a small business, or even a large corporation, all your objectives are unique, but there are some common best practices and factors that boost your chances for success.
What are these best practices and factors of success? How to follow them? Goals team has prepared all the answers for you, as well as tips how to use the Goals app to reach your objectives. No time to waste, let’s dive in right now!
Reaching your objectives: key success factors in business
1. Attainable goals
The best way to achieve what you want is to set specific, actionable goals. It may seem quite evident, but in reality, it’s easier said than done. Driven by ambition, we may set outsized goals and not notice that we aimed too high relative to what can actually be achieved.
As an American author, salesman, and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “A goal properly set is halfway reached”. What does the proper goal-setting involve? An important step, for example, is to verify if your goal can be achieved in the present-day business environment. You can find more info in our article How to set business goals in 2020 to actually achieve them. Be sure to check it out!
2. Clear evaluation of your resources
Another element of success is a clear understanding of available resources. Having enough of the necessary resources is critical in achieving your business objectives. Included are money, physical facilities, human resources, competence, etc. You should accurately evaluate and align your resources and capabilities with your business goals. The result? Proper goal alignment boosts the productivity of any business.
Examining human resources, you need to pay attention not only to their current skills, but the employees’ potential and ability to perform. The overall potential of your business relies on individual employees reaching their potential. If they fail to do it, it’s a matter of time before your business starts falling behind. You can check out this Forbes article to dig deeper into the topic.
3. Well-defined scope and requirements
Speaking of success and achieving your objectives, a vital element is a well-defined scope of work to be done. You need to outline what you’re expected to complete within your project. Take enough time to break down this objective into a set of key results that will pave your way to success. Also, make sure to define requirements or success criteria both of your objective and its key results. Ask yourself such questions as:
- What do we have to do to achieve the objective?
- What product, service, or result will be produced?
- What steps will bring you closer to your objective?
- When the result is achieved what will be its measure of success?
- What KPIs should your team meet?
- What are the possible risks?
In Goals by KeepSolid, the scope of work for reaching your objective is presented in the form of a mind map. The objective is the mind map’s central point, with key results deriving from it. With such a view, you see the whole picture of what has to be achieved at a glance.
4. Carefully crafted plan
Good planning is closely interrelated with other key elements of success. It also implies that you decide exactly which people, resources, and budget are required to meet your objective. And surely it involves:
- Breaking work into digestible chunks
Craft a detailed plan by outlining what work should be completed to produce the expected deliverables. How is this done in the Goals app? Once you have all necessary key results in place, break down each of them into a set of digestible chunks – tasks. This renders all your key results, and with them your global objective, more attainable.
- Defining the schedule
Besides splitting work into chunks, estimate time and effort needed for each activity, dependencies between them, and work out a realistic schedule. A good idea is to involve your team in the estimation process. With their feedback, you’re more likely to set deadlines that your team will successfully meet.
- Assigning tasks to your team
Assign tasks and key results to relevant team members and make sure everyone understands their job responsibilities and the role they play on the team. Also, ensure that your employees realize what organizational goals stand behind each activity. Why’s this important? Let us quote Ken Blanchard and Scott Blanchard, who explain it all:
“Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity, and meaning in their job”.
As a result, your team becomes more productive. And this, in turn, brings higher chances for success. Fortunately, with Goals by KeepSolid, you need no extra effort to communicate goals to your team. Each task you add and assign is attached to a specific key result, so your employees can instantly see why they are doing the activities. There can’t be a task without a goal, so each and every activity is goal-oriented.
5. Clear KPIs and regular control
There’s definitely a grain of truth in Peter Drucker’s quote “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. You can’t know if you’re successful unless the criteria of success is defined and tracked. Clearly established metrics let you easily quantify progress and verify if the desired outcome is reached.
The Goals app provides great opportunities for measuring everything thanks to the KPI feature. You can set KPIs both to key results and tasks. There’s a rich variety of KPI options so you can select the one that meets exactly your business needs.
Keeping track of how your team is progressing also implies regular monitoring and conducting retrospectives. This helps you timely detect variances from plan and course correct if required.
Monitor your team progress using the Reports tab of Goals by KeepSolid. There, you can get a quick and convenient overview of all current, completed, and overdue tasks, so nothing important slips your attention!
