Last time we talked about the pros and cons of establishing Goals and Objectives as part of the planning process.  We said that goals and objectives can hinder continuous improvement but, if developed and deployed well can help focus attention and effort.

We need two things:

1. An overall picture that communicates to everyone in the organization why we are implementing the agile initiative in the first place (those are our Goals), and
2. Metrics to which specific operating targets can be applied (these will be our Objectives).

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Goals
The astute reader will see that I'm using the term Goals in the same way might use the term Vision...not exactly, as we'll see, but close.  Too many organizations start the whole process without so much as a by-your-leave as to exactly why the organization is undertaking all this trouble.  Everything goes OK so long as it only involves a little cleaning up around the work area or watching a video of a recent changeover but as soon as a bit of energy or discipline is required, the process ebbs...unless leadership has done a good job of tying agile initiatives to overall company goals.

A good question to ask as a way of getting started on Goals:  "Two years (or five or ten or whatever)  from now,  what do we want to see that we don't see now?"  Answers should cover everything from desired sales to safety.  Then you should ask (and discuss with others): "How does the agile initiative help us reach achieve this vision?"  Another good question to ask is, "What is/are our present strategy/strategic goals and how does the agile initiative help us reach those?"

As an example, after considering the preceding questions, our company (let's imagine it's a small, make-to-order metal stamping shop) might develop something that looks like this:

We want to keep increasing sales by 10-15% each year.  To do that, we have to improve capabilities on several fronts: we need to be more responsive, more agile, more able to produce exactly what the customer wants with as few delays, scrap, rejects, late or wrong deliveries as possible.  We can't compete on price....everybody is low and some are lower than we are.  We have to compete on quality and service.  We have to be able to say "we can" when everyone else is saying "we can't" but we have to be able to do it at the same price.

See what I mean? 

Then we'll need to communicate that and other goals to everyone but we'll tackle that later.

In my next post we'll talk about metrics and objectives.