Goals & Objectives Modeling Kit

Business Modeling
August 18, 2010

Purpose

Goal / Objective modeling is done in preparation for completing a motivation model.

The motivation models are helpful for:

Understanding why things are the way they are
Uncovering major discrepancies (competing goals/objectives)
Ensuring processes, people, and information are aligned with the corporations
goals and objectives
Negotiating the closure of gaps
Setting priorities

The motivational model helps us continue modeling. It provides a starting point for us
to identify other sets of information

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Tips & Suggestions for Goals

Keep goals broad. They should be general intentions, abstract, intangible and cannot be measured.

Goals should be reasonable, attainable, and simply stated.

Goals should be worthwhile (i.e., it provides some advantage or benefit). For example, value in the
marketplace, reduced costs of operations, increased value or service to customer.

Goals should align with the goals of the organization. Think about the goals the high level process
(e.g., Constraints Management) has to meet the goals of the organization.

Ask yourself the following

What do you want that you dont have? (Achieve)

What do you want that you already have? (Preserve)

What dont you have that you want to avoid? (Avoid)

What do you have now that you dont want? (Eliminate)

Try structuring your goal statement with a purpose, issue, object (e.g., products, processes, or
resources) and viewpoint. For example, Improve the timeliness of change request processing from
the project managers viewpoint. Structuring the goal statement this way helps to identify
objectives.

Purpose:
Issue:
Object:
Viewpoint:

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Improve
the timeliness of
change request processing
from the project Managers viewpoint

* a process hierarchy can help here!

* an organization/people model can help here!

Tips & Suggestions for Goals (contd)

Binning goals is also a helpful way to determine if you have good coverage or completeness of
goals. Goals can be binned into the following types.

Financial (Profitability, increased revenue or reduced cost)

Growth (Market share, entry into new markets)

Quality (How good a service or product is)

Product (anything that affect what the company produces)

Image (Perception of a company)

Competitive Position (Target position in the market)

Resources (Human, intellectual, physical)

The following sources are good to review to help find goals:

Program and Project Charters are a good source for goals

Strategies that align to the work you are doing are good sources for goals

Corporate policy statements

Strategic plans

Problems (goals can be reverse engineered from problems)

A process hierarchy, conceptual data model and organization/people model can help in
identifying goals by asking the Achieve, Preserve, Avoid, and Eliminate questions in the
context of each element in the models.

It is important to spend some time talking to higher level managers about goals and how they align
to the organizations goals.

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Tips & Suggestions for Objectives

Business objectives should be SMART (Specific clear and precise, Measureable quantifiable,
Achievable realistic, Relevant linked to business needs, and Time based defined by clear
deadlines).

Business objectives should typically have a duration of 12-24 months.

Business objectives should be ranked in order of importance with the lowest numbers being more
important and the higher numbers being less important.

Business objectives can have supporting (one enables the achievement of the other) or competing
(implies one cannot be achieved if the other is realized) relationships with each other.

Business objectives must align to a goal (otherwise, why are we trying to fulfill the objective).

If you want unbiased objectives then tie the objective to the object of the goal. If you want
subjectivity in your objective tie the objective to the object and the viewpoint.

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Tips & Suggestions for Objectives (contd)

If you structure the goal statements with a purpose, issue, object (e.g., products, processes, or
resources) and viewpoint then you can asks questions that can help to pull out objectives.
In the example goal:
Improve the timeliness of change request processing from the project managers viewpoint.

Ask questions that characterize the object with respect to the overall goal
Example
- What is the change request processing speed?
- Is the (documented) change request process actually performed?

Ask questions that characterize the attributes of the object that are relevant with respect to the
issue
Example
- What is the deviation of the actual change request processing time from the estimated one?
- Is the performance of the process improving?

Ask questions that evaluate the characteristics of the object that are relevant with respect to
the issue
Example
- Is the performance visibly improving?
- Is the current performance satisfactory from the viewpoint of the project manager?

This can help you identify metrics and good objectives for those metrics.
Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Tips & Suggestions for Objectives (contd)

Once you ask the questions you can develop metrics which can then be translated into
measureable objectives (see sample table below).

The lack of maturity of the data used to measure may become an objective itself (meaning
that an objective might be needed to create the data).

Goal

Purpose

Improve

Issue

the timeliness of

Object

change request processing

Viewpoint

From the project managers viewpoint

Question

Q1

What is the current change request processing speed?

Metrics

M1

Average cycle time

M2

Standard deviation

M3

% cases outside the upper limit

Question

Q2

Is the (documented) change request process actually performed?

Metrics

M4

Subjective rating by the project manager

M5

% of exceptions identified during reviews

Question

Q3

What is the deviation of the actual change request processing time from the estimated one?

Metrics

M6

Current average cycle time Estimated average cycle time / current average cycle time * 100

M7

Subjective evaluation by the project manager

Q4

If the performance of the process improving?

M8

Current average cycle time / Baseline average cycle time * 100

Question

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Ford Motor Company IT

What to do to Prepare for a Session

Spend some time reviewing charters, strategies, corporate policies, and strategic
plans. Pull out any goals or objectives that you think will relate to your work.

Review the process hierarchy, conceptual data model, and organization/people model
and think about the goals and objectives around each element.

Have 1:1s with people that run the high level processes and ask them about their
problems or their goals and how those goals relate to the corporations goals.

Collect any materials that you think help support your thoughts for naming and
describing goals and objectives
Know where the source location is to retrieve electronic versions
Bring those materials to the session

Help us make sure we have all the right people in the sessions

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

Goal Attributes to Collect

Before we can begin modeling goals, we need to collect information about the goals. The
following table describes the type of information we collect and what is minimally
required
Min.
Req.

Attribute Name

Description

Notes

Ref#

A unique number that we assign to identify the goal (e.g., 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.1,
or 1.1.1.3)

Goal

The goal statement. This is an aspiration or aim of the business that

states a direction in which it will focus its efforts in support of the mission.
Goals are general directions, somewhat nebulous that are not specific
enough to be measured.

Source

Reference to the location or source of the goal from which it was derived

Questions

A list of questions pertaining to the goal to help pull out objectives

Applicable Region

The region(s) the goal affects

Notes

Any additional comments or points to help clarify the goal or any meaning
of the statement.

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

These numbers and groupings

adjust often. We are not looking
for perfection here.

You do not need to provide this

information. IT will drive this
attribute.

Objective Attributes to Collect

Before we can begin modeling objectives, we need to collect information about the
objectives. The following table describes the type of information we collect and what is
minimally required
Min.
Req.

Attribute Name

Description

Notes

Ref#

A unique number that we assign to identify the objective (e.g., 1.0, 1.1,
1.1.1, or 1.1.1.3)

Objective

The objective statement

Measurement

The metric used to grade the objective

Goals

The goal statement(s) that the objective supports

Source

Reference to the location or source of the objective from which it was

derived

Applicable Region

The region(s) the objective affects

Notes

Any additional comments or points to help clarify the objective or any

meaning of the statement.

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

10

These numbers and groupings

adjust often. We are not looking
for perfection here.

Note that the goal questions are

helpful to establish metrics

Sample Descriptions
No.

Goal

1.0

Manage, support, and refine the Information Architecture strategy, principles, processes, and models for the benefit of the
Ford Motor Company enterprise

2.0

Promote the use of sound architecture practices and strategic decision-making in the development of Information
Technology solutions

3.0

Advocate an enterprise perspective for the identification of information reuse and communization opportunities in order to
reduce the inherent complexity of the information assets within the company

No.

Objective

Goal(s)

Measurement

1.0

Manage and maintain a repository of Information Architecture documents

and references for the benefit of the architects and analysts within Ford
Motor Company Information Technology

1.0

No. of documents and

references in the repository

2.0

Champion the exchange of industry and company information, best

practices, and lessons learned for the cross-functional information
architecture community

1.0, 2.0,
3.0

No. of best practices identified,

No. of lessons learned
produced

3.0

Participate in central and local Architecture Review Boards (ARBs) to

review SDM work products and provide guidance and assist with issue
resolution for the information architecture portion of solutions

2.0

No. of participated architecture

Reviews

4.0

Construct and publish a comprehensive list of data sources,

characteristics, and stewards for the key data entities within the Ford
Motor Company enterprise

3.0

List published

5.0

Consult and advise ADS and PTG teams in the areas of data usage,
2.0
principles, and information models as specified, designed and constructed
within the Ford Motor Company Solution Delivery Methodology (SDM)

No. of project teams advised

Note that not all objectives are listed that appear on the motivation diagram on the next slide for simplicity of space
Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

11

Sample Motivational Model

Note that this diagram
may look different
due to tooling used

Enterprise Technology
Ford Motor Company IT

12