Reaching Measureable Objectives

Katie Paine, author of Measure What Matters, discusses the importance of measuring relationships throughout this book. In chapter two, she takes a look at how to get started when measuring objectives you want for your business or company.

When choosing what measureable objectives you want to reach you should have six basic steps in mind.
1. Understand your background.
-When looking at this step it's important to know what you want to measure and the outcomes you would like to happen. It's also going to be important to rank your key messages, stakeholders and competitors and then rank them by importance.
2. Assemble everyone on your team.
-With this step when they say everyone on the team should be involved, they mean everyone. In this meeting all the staff should be involved, all the staff's bosses should be involved, along with the boss's boss.
3. Ask them what they mean when they say "We got our butts kicked".
-In this step, you want to know what makes individuals in your company feel as though they've been beat by another company. Write down these responses on a flip chart, so you are able to use these responses in a later step.
4. Ask them what they mean when they say " Congratulations, we kicked butt last week".
-Similar to the last step, you know what to know what makes individuals in your company feel as though they did something better than their competitors. As with the last step you will want to write these responses down on a flip chart, so they can be used in a later step.
5. Ask everyone what their objective are.
-In this step, we are now going to look at the flip chart where we wrote down responses to both the positives and negatives. We will then want to go through all of these steps one by one and ask "
Why does this matter?". We will then want to write down the response and then ask again "Why does this matter?". Then write down this response and again ask "Why?". You will then want to keep asking why until you reach a measureable objective which relates to your bottom line.
6. Have individuals vote on what their highest priority is.
-With this step you are able to get a clear, agreed upon definition of how you want to achieve the perfect measurement system. By having everyone agree on a standard definition of success, you will then be able to more easily judge your performance in the marketplace and against your competition.

As a company it's important to know what objectives you're trying to reach as you want everyone in your company to be reaching for the same goals. By going thru all of these steps, everyone on your company will not only be on the page, but will also be striving for the same objectives.