Strategic Planning Best Practice 1 – Make the Mission Measurable

An organization’s mission statement defines its purpose, its reason for being. These statements, however, tend to be broad and somewhat vague; making it difficult to identify the specific products, services, initiatives, and people that will most directly enable the organization to achieve its purpose.

Making the mission measurable provides the added clarity needed to focus decisions and drive actions toward achievement of the organization’s purpose. The mission is translated into a time-bound measure of performance rather than a specific goal. The value of competing alternatives can then be evaluated against the measure; offering executives and managers a mission contribution basis for the selection and pursuit of specific business opportunities.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.