How to build your company game plan with 1-year and 90-day goals
This video and the article is part of a series of exercises taken from the ResultMaps workshop, “How to Accelerate Results with Accountability + Ownership." This exercise works best when preceded by the keeping score exercise, which you can find here.
Once you have developed a company vision and a scoreboard for keeping track of progress, the focus can shift to building a game plan. We can start building that game-plan by honing in on the priorities for the year.
We’ve included a spreadsheet template that you can use to complete this exercise. If you’re a ResultMaps user, you can plug in the results you get from this exercise into your tracker.
Create your “big three” 1-year goals
In this process for coming up with your yearly goals, we aim for simplicity and clarity by limiting ourselves to the top three priorities. This approach is inspired by successful companies experiencing high growth, but keeping it simple has proven effective even for smaller and earlier-stage businesses. We recommend including categories like revenue and sales, marketing, or even profitability in your one-year goals. No matter what categories you choose, the emphasis remains on maintaining focus with just three priorities.
The idea is to use these goals as broad buckets. Then, we can begin accommodating shorter-term goals within them. If you find yourself with a long list of goals, don’t worry; you can organize these into the three overarching buckets, maintaining a clear and simple narrative for better understanding and focus.
Some example of the big three goals:
Sales and finance: We will hit $X in annual revenue
Marketing: We will be known as the best <provider> in <industry>
Profitability: We will empower our team to succeed in a hybrid environment
Create your shorter-term goals
Once you’ve established your three major priorities for the year, we can then delve into the near-term. This shift forces us to prioritize what comes next. The timeframe for this depends on your situation; if you're in a highly volatile environment or experiencing full VUCA, consider a 45 or 30-day outlook. For larger companies, especially those exceeding $20 million, a 90-day approach works well, unless exceptional circumstances like a pandemic call for adjustments.
Your 1-year goal sets the stage. For the next 90 days (or your chosen timeframe), we need a specific objective to concentrate on. Aim for clarity and simplicity, keeping the success criteria manageable, and ensure each criterion has a directly responsible individual.
Repeat the process to create three objectives per 1-year goal, keeping the focus on simplicity and ownership distribution. This structure ensures that while higher-level goals may be owned by specific individuals, the column with success criteria becomes an opportunity to distribute ownership within the team, fostering an adaptive environment. It's crucial to resist overcomplicating the cascade of objectives and key results to maintain a clear and manageable strategy. The third 1-year goal is optional, especially for smaller teams or startups.
How the gameplan helps
This clarity on strategy mitigates the likelihood that team members wander off track, and it facilitates adaptation. In summary, the three priorities for the year translate into specific actions for the next 90 days, each with clear and measurable criteria for success. This distribution of accountability sets the stage for:
monitoring progress
making necessary adjustment
accelerating towards success.
Great job on building this clear destination and route as we navigate through vision and strategy. Feel free to provide additional background analysis as needed, adapting your approach to meet the team's requirements without overwhelming them upfront. Many high-growth teams focus on managing numbers, fostering a specific culture, and adapting swiftly without drowning in excessive analysis.