You have big goals; now what?
You have some Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs), and everyone thinks they’re brilliant. But, now what? How do you ensure you can achieve them? That’s where things get tricky. In this post, we’ll walk through some tips for taking your goals from concept to completion.
The first step.
With so many moving parts and details involved in executing a plan, it helps to create a roadmap to success and identify the team that will help you get there. You can reach your big goals by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps, and then creating a plan to reach each smaller goal. First, consider what you want to achieve for the year and break it into quarters. Next, break your quarterly goals into monthly initiatives.
What does that look like?
After you’ve broken your goals down, make a plan to ensure success. Here are three ways to create a successful plan:
- Identify the tasks required to reach the goals.
- Identify the team and/or partners that will help you achieve the goals.
- Establish quarterly and monthly objectives.
- Set key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Finalize your strategy.
- Track your progress.
Stay on target.
Tracking goals is crucial to staying on target and achieving success. By regularly monitoring progress and adjusting as needed, you can ensure that you and your team are staying on track and making progress toward the desired outcome. What’s more, regularly monitoring goals helps identify obstacles early and provides motivation to keep going, leading to greater chances of success.
Using goal-tracking tools can help you and your team stay focused on your target. At a minimum, a collaborative spreadsheet can keep you and your team aligned. For more sophisticated projects, apps like HubSpot, Databox, or Google Data Studio include goal-tracking features and are great for monitoring KPIs. Project management tools such as Wrike, Asana, or Monday.com can help everyone communicate and stay organized. Here at Alaniz, we use Wrike to keep our team connected and projects moving forward.
Do not let execution be an afterthought.
Execution is the most crucial part of a plan. If you execute well, your project will succeed.
The best way to ensure your idea is carried out well is to make sure everyone involved is inspired, knows how important it is, and what they can do to help. You should also ensure accountability for tasks throughout each phase of execution so that no one person becomes overwhelmed by their workload or feels like they’re being left behind because another person isn’t doing their part.
Final thoughts.
These tips will help you execute your plan with more efficiency. The key thing to remember is that execution is a group effort, not just the responsibility of the leader or project manager. If everyone on the team understands their role in carrying out the plan, then success will be much more likely!
