Goal Core · Strategic goals · Module
Horizon and measures
When the goal is expected to land, and what would count as having landed. One primary measure per goal; a second usually means the first was not trusted.
The idea
How it works
A goal without a horizon cannot be late, and a goal that cannot be late will not be prioritised. The date is not a prediction; it is what makes the goal capable of failing.
One primary measure is a discipline rather than a simplification. Several measures allow a goal to be reported as succeeding on whichever one happens to be moving, which is precisely the ambiguity the measure was meant to remove.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Set a date the goal could miss
Vague horizons protect goals from evaluation, which is why they are popular.
- 02
Choose one measure
The one that would settle an argument about whether the goal was met.
- 03
Say what the number has to reach
A measure without a threshold is a dashboard, not a goal.
- 04
Add supporting measures separately
Keep them, but mark them as context. Only one decides.
One level in
The components of horizon and measures
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Where the primary measure cannot be agreed, the goal itself is usually still ambiguous. That is worth discovering now rather than at the horizon.
The other modules in strategic goals
Diagnosis
A plain statement of the challenge the goal exists to answer — what is in the way, and why it matters now. Written before the goal, not reverse-engineered after it.
LearnStrategic themes
The few coherent lines of effort the goals group into, so that separate goals reinforce one another instead of competing for the same people.
LearnTrade-offs
What is deliberately not being pursued, recorded alongside what is. The value of writing it down is that it is available later, when the excluded option returns looking attractive.
Learn