Whether you’re using the Balanced Scorecard, OKR, or both, your success is highly dependent on the ability of your teams to write technically proficient and effective objectives. Without solid objectives you have about as much chance of seeing the benefits of alignment, transparency, focus, and accountability as you do of winning the lottery without going to the trouble of buying a ticket. It’s that important! So, let’s break it down.
A well-written objective is comprised of three parts:
- A verb. Objectives are action-oriented, and therefore must start with a verb.
- What you’re going to do. This is the aspirational component of the objective.
- “In order to” or “so that.” This last piece is critical because it describes the business impact you hope to achieve with the objective.
Here’s an example: Reduce mobile app crashes in order to improve the user experience.
Point number three above is really the secret sauce of a great objective. It’s relatively easy to open your laptop, start a new document and briskly fill the page with statements starting with a verb and outlining a goal for the future. But the final component, the business impact, is where the true value lies. Your “in order to” or “so that” represents the strategic relevance of your chosen objective, how it will actually propel the organization forward in a desired, and strategic, direction. Articulating your anticipated business impact also paves the way for powerful conversations with your boss. You’ll have to cogently defend your choice, and in so doing you’ll be sharing your view of the company’s strategy. If you’ve got it right, great! If you don’t … that’s great too because you can then have a meaningful dialog with your boss on where the company is going, and how you (or your team) fit in.
Beyond sticking to the formula above, effective objectives should be:
- Meaningful to you. The more you care about an objective, the more likely you are to achieve it.
- Aspirational but attainable. Stretch yourself, but not beyond what’s possible.
- Mostly controllable by the team. “Mostly,” but sometimes you need help with an objective, and that can result in shared objectives, which drive cross-functional collaboration.
- Doable in the time period. However, some objectives will roll over to the next period, and that’s OK as long as you update your key results.
Take your time, and carefully deliberate when composing objectives. The commitment will pay you back many times over in the form of enhanced execution.
