The Better Business Analysis Institute presence.
The Better Business Analysis Podcast with Benjamin Walsh.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis
Podcast with Benjamin Walsh. Now this week we're going to be
focusing on Smart Objectives. This is part of our BA Unleashed
series and I know we've been focusing a lot on strategic
analysis and for some of you you could have been a lot a bit lost
in that. This is not necessarily what 80%
of the population of BAS focus on.
However, it's so critical BAS are there to add value to the
business and how can you do that without understanding what the
market conditions are and what the strategy of the business is,
right. So we are going to be moving on
to where BAS typically may have heard of these terms.
I believe B as are best to define these with the executive
team. And what we're talking about are
strategic SMART objectives, OK. And we're going to run through
what SMART stands for. It's an acronym and we're going
to talk about how strategic objectives shape our programs of
work, our Epics and therefore user stories.
OK, so if you haven't heard of SMART objectives, then I would
recommend that you know you should, you should Google this
stuff specifically. SMART objectives are goals that
are specific, is measurable in achievable, A relevant and time
bound. They're commonly used in program
and project management and also business planning.
They, they, they can be used for both sides of the coin here and
they allow us this. The SMART method allows us to
ensure that the objectives are well defined and aligned with
our overall strategy, what we're trying to achieve for like next
three years for example, right. So we're going to go through
SMART objectives, We're going to talk about what SMART stands
for. SMART stands for specific, Yes,
for specific. What does that mean?
That means objectives should be clear and specific, leaving no
room for ambiguity. If everyone in the exec team,
everyone in the business unit doesn't know what this objective
means, it's not right. Specific objectives should
answer the question of who, what, where, when and why.
So the five WS and you know you can add in the two HS as well in
terms of how and how much because we'll be talking about
that on our second point which is MMM stands for measurable
objectives, should be quantifiable, allowing progress
to be tracked and measured. This helps us in determining
whether or not the objective has been achieved or not.
And this is really important for lots of reasons.
One, it's our guiding light and make sure that the projects and
programs and all the complexity that goes underneath these
strategic objectives always have the eye on the prize.
If you do benefits realization, which is part of the Better
Business analysis, sorry, Better Business case process here in
New Zealand and in the UK, if you know about benefits
realization and if you know about strategic logic mapping,
that's all here. OK.
This is the map. This is the map between your
problem statements, your objectives and your benefits.
This is so critical. OK.
So that's M measurable #3 is achievable.
Objectives should be realistic and attainable within the given
constraints such as resourcing and time and expertise and the
people you tone have around the organization.
And most importantly, if you bring in what we've learned over
the last couple of weeks, is this achievable in the market
you're in? Is this actually achievable?
Here's one example when we talk about achievable and specific
and now moving on to I guess we've just covered measurable.
Here would be an example. We want to increase the amount
of new customers that we acquire each month from 11:50 at our AT
Tim's mechanics store, OK. We want to do that by the end of
2023. Now that is a specific
measurable that is achievable. OK.
We're increasing something that naturally happens.
We acquire 10 people, you know, organically and we want to
invest some time, some effort in terms of uplifting that by 20%
from 11:50, OK. So that's something that's
achievable. If I said I wanted to increase
my customers from 10 to 500, unless I was a specific, you
know, Unicorn organization, that's not going to happen.
Achievable means that you can set goals that are achievable,
like I just said 20%. However, you can add a stretch
goal what's called 25%. So a stretch goal is sometimes
used at the end of strategic objectives to talk about say,
when a bonus should be paid out. So your exec team could say,
well the goal is 20%. If we reach 25% that helps with
our cash flow and we're able to pay bonuses.
So this is where the bonus system and performance
management should come from, #4 is relevant.
Objectives should be aligned with the overall strategy and
contribute to the greater goals of the organization.
So this means that someone's pep project on the side that isn't
aligned with our strategy or someone who has come up with
something in the operational team if it doesn't align with
our strategy, don't try and fit the, you know the round peg and
the square hole these this is a top down process.
This is the way it should be done.
This is the three-year plan and you know and this is what we
should be focusing on, these smart objectives should be
meaningful and have a direct impact on the desired outcome,
OK, that that means that they're relevant, they're relevant to
what we're trying to achieve with our vision for the
three-year period. You know it may not be three
years, it could be longer or shorter, but let's say three
years. So it needs to be relevant to
what we, what dials do we want to move.
You know what levers do we need to pull for our company as a
whole, which is why that's strategic.
And an MBA mindset that you've developed over the last couple
of weeks is so important #5 the last one is time bound.
So objectives should have a specific time frame or deadline
for completion. This helps setting priorities,
managing resources and tracking progress.
So this is when your strategic objectives can drop down to a
project plan or a program plan. And also at the end of the
objective you should say by the end of 2023, for example, if you
think of a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time
bound goal, you know the UN might say we we want to cut
global emissions by, you know, 50% by the end of 2050 for
example. Some would say that might not be
achievable based on the politics around, you know, in this global
world. But it is an achievable goal if
all the all the nations thought that this is what we should be
focusing on on as a as a world. By setting these smart strategic
objectives, organizations are able to ensure that their goals
are well defined, achievable. Measurable.
OK. This approach promotes clarity
which is so important, accountability which is always
missing a focus and ultimately leads to more successful
outcomes for your organization. Smart objectives are awesome.
BAS are so good at helping to find those And if you, if you,
if you think some of the stuff we've covered in the last couple
of weeks has been a little bit out there.
This is this is where the rubber hits the road and where B as
should be involved of you know more than 50% of the BA
population should be involved in this, especially if you are a
senior business analyst, OK. And if you're not a senior
business analyst, if you're not even ABA, then at least you can
see how organizational planning should take, should take place
and you can help your exec team get here.
You know, you should have a Max three to six of these.
If you're a small organization, I think 3 strategic objectives
is enough, right? And this should be your plan.
This should be the focus. This should be everything that
matters here. So strategic objectives, once
they're defined, then they can drop down in terms of a bit of a
what are we going to do, how are we going to meet them?
And in the agile world, we talk about what are called
initiatives or themes. They're usually one in the same,
which then drop down to Epics. Now the if you talk about
hierarchy, strategic objectives, Epics, and and initiatives,
sorry, strategic objectives, themes and initiatives are all
at the same level. Strategic themes in the agile
world should really be the kind of buzzword, the main focus of
the strategic objective. It shouldn't be a replacement
for or another layer of abstraction.
So we're increasing the amount of new customers we wanted for
our mechanic store and might be increased the amount of new
customers might be the short phrase we use as our theme.
It wouldn't be a replacement for the long written form of that
would be our strategic objectives, OK.
And that the same goes for if you're using term initiatives
and that's when you that's the top pyramid of kind of the agile
stack, this theme which then has Epics underneath it.
So OK, So what what what I've just said there is that
strategic objectives are the same as themes.
So they're the things, themes are just the paraphrase word,
hopefully you don't you know lose any context by shortening
it and then the epics go underneath that.
So you might say as a mechanic store, I want to be able to
engage with a marketing firm to help work out how we can
increase new customer acquisition by 20% in the next
six months. So so that we can meet our goal
of gaining 20%, you know, more customers per month by the end
of 2023. That was a long sentence, but
you get the point. So you wouldn't necessarily need
that last bit, which is the strategic objective because
we're already mapping up to it. But the epoch is there.
That is now a thing we can do. So that's the first step on the
road to success. And then of course user stories
can drop out of there, which might be task based you know, or
they could be functional based or non functional based your
your requirements if you like. So that's exactly how we define
it. Epics are also called business
requirements. In the kind of pre agile world
they're one in the same. So these all map up to your
objectives. You've got your objectives,
you've got your business requirements and you've got your
functional non functional requirements.
That's one world. Or you could say I've got my
themes, which are the shortened version of my strategic
objectives. I've got my epics and I've got
my stories. OK, that's how it works.
You can use either language, depending on your organization,
but that is how everything breaks down to your BA world
from here. Smart strategic objectives are
fantastic. They're awesome.
They help define programs, they help track where we're at, and
hopefully you've learned something today.
So if you don't know about objectives, your team doesn't
know why you're doing a piece of work.
Ask for a copy of the strategic objectives for your organization
and see how much your program aligns.
See you next time.