The words mission, vision, objectives, strategy etc. are all bandied about a lot by organisations. But all too often terms are used interchangeably, or in the wrong context, because we often don’t really have a clue what is actually meant by them, let alone the relationships between them all! So here’s a keep-it-simple guide to some of the most common terms and what they’re all about.
The place to start is the organisation mission and vision. People are often confused between mission and vision statements. Your company Mission is essentially the business you’re in – what you exist to do. So for example, ‘To supply great quality Widgets and Grommets to the construction industry’. Your Vision is where you want to be – what you want things to look like. E.g. ‘To become the nation’s premier supplier of Widgets and Grommets at affordable prices, whilst maintaining our environmental values and customer service standards’.
You can combine both into one statement or have them separately; they can be detailed or short and snappy. The point is – they define the business, where it is and where it’s going.
You then need a strategy in order to achieve your mission and vision. It’s not enough to vaguely know the direction you’re going in with your business. If you don’t know your intended destination, you won’t know the route to get there, the best methods to use, how close you are to it or when you’ve arrived. This is where your strategy comes in – the big picture planning, giving you an overall framework of how to reach your vision. Your strategy is how and why your plan will work.
It will no doubt involve having several aims or goals. Linked with your Vision, these are specific things you need to achieve, to move you closer to the vision. Unlike objectives, aims or goals may be quite broad, or broadly expressed – such as ‘Expand into the engineering industry sector’.
Breaking it down further, an objective is a practical, measurable expression of steps you propose to take within a defined time period to advance you towards an aim/goal. It is a written statement which expresses in a specific way the standard of performance which will be considered effective. E.g., ‘To increase our new client base by 20% within the next 3 months’.
An objective may have several outcomes, aka targets, outputs or deliverables. These are what need to be produced or delivered in order to meet the overall objective. So, to increase your client base, this could involve updating your website, sending out a marketing mailshot or introducing a referral fee for new business – all different outcomes that will advance you towards achievement of the main objective.
Longer-term objectives and outputs may have key milestones. A milestone is a key point in a programme when a sub-objective or interim deliverable is produced. It usually marks the end of a stage or phase of the programme, and often needs to be completed before the next phase begins. It sometimes refers to events or steps in the process which are profound and deserve reflection, or at least a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate!
However, you can’t ‘do’ a programme or project – you can only ‘do’ an action. Activities, tactics, tasks and actions are all referring to what has to be done or needs to be undertaken in order to meet that milestone or target. Several can be captured in an action plan – combining all of the above into a structured, practical and coherent way to advance effectively.
So to sum up, you need to do activities or actions, in order to reach milestones, to deliver outputs, that allow you to achieve an objective, which will advance you towards your aims, that you need to reach your overall vision. Simples!
Finally though, don’t forget measurement, which is an integral part of the process. Measuring defines to what degree the objective has been met and the relative impact on the realisation of the aims and Vision. So be sure to identify how will you define success measures – e.g. Financial, productivity, customer feedback, error rates, complaints, turnover etc.
Get all this in place, and it shouldn’t be long before your Vision turns into reality!