How to Plan a Business Goal

Implementing tactical goals is essential to successfully following an overall business strategy. Create realistic goals that align with the broader strategic vision for the organization, and then use the following steps to map out a plan to accomplish these goals.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. In one or two sentences, write down the overall strategy for your business. What is its essential purpose for being? This should be "higher level" than the goal for which you want to create a plan.

2. Write down how your particular business goal helps achieve the overall business strategy. This will help guide your team in planning for and completing its goal.

3. Write a draft of the key success criteria for your goal. What needs to happen for the goal to be completed?

4. Write down the milestones that need to be passed for the goal to be successful. Write them chronologically to begin a time line for your plan.

5. List all those who are needed to help complete the goal. Specify their responsibilities. All team members must fully understand their importance to achieving the goal.

6. Meet with the team to discuss the goal, success criteria, milestones and responsibilities. Adjust these as a group, utilizing the expertise of each member. By the meeting's end, the team should align to the goal and the plan to achieve it.

7. Compile these decisions into a single document, which will serve as your official plan to complete the business goal. Distribute it to all stakeholders in the business and refer to it often to keep on track toward your goal.

Tips & Warnings

• Once you feel the goal is completed, review the plan with your team one more time to verify that all of the appropriate steps were finished. Also, discuss how the plan could have been better, and write down your ideas so that future plans can be improved.