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Strategy Analysis
Define Future State
6.2.4 Elements
.1 Business Goals and Objectives
A future state can be described in terms of business objectives or goals in order to
guide the development of the change strategy and identify potential value.
Business goals and objectives describe the ends that the organization is seeking to
achieve. Goals and objectives can relate to changes that the organization wants
to accomplish, or current conditions that it wants to maintain.
Goals are longer term, ongoing, and qualitative statements of a state or condition
that the organization is seeking to establish and maintain. Examples of business
goals include:
• Create a new capability such as a new product or service, address a
competitive disadvantage, or create a new competitive advantage.
• Improve revenue by increasing sales or reducing cost.
• Increase customer satisfaction.
• Increase employee satisfaction.
• Comply with new regulations.
• Improve safety.
• Reduce time to deliver a product or service.
High-level goals can be decomposed to break down the general strategy into
areas that may lead to desired results, such as increased customer satisfaction,
operational excellence, and/or business growth. For example, a goal may be to
"increase number of high-revenue customers" and then be further refined into a
goal to "increase number of high revenue customers in the 30-45 age bracket by
30% within 6 months".
As goals are analyzed they are converted into more descriptive, granular and
specific objectives, and linked to measures that make it possible to objectively
assess if the objective has been achieved. Objectives that are measurable enable
teams to know if needs were addressed and whether a change was effective.
Defining measurable objectives is often critical to justify completing the change
and might be a key component to a business case for the change. A common test
for assessing objectives is to ensure that they are SMART:
• Specific: describing something that has an observable outcome,
• Measurable: tracking and measuring the outcome,
• Achievable: testing the feasibility of the effort,
• Relevant: aligning with the enterprise’s vision, mission, and goals, and
• Time-bounded: defining a time frame that is consistent with the need.
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