Ideas are wonderful.
They often provide tangible pathways to implementing the mission of an organization or business.
Unfortunately, the intense focus on developing and implementing a concept can distract us from the overall objectives of why the idea was birthed in the first place. Objectives are important. In fact, they’re vital to the success of any idea. Objectives are the goals of one’s mission.
Objectives (or goals) provide much needed guidance, healthy boundaries, and measurable outcomes (both quantitatively and qualitatively). Working on an idea without an objective is taking a shot in the dark.
Here are some guiding questions that you and your team can consider while working through ideas (and objectives):
- How does our idea support the objectives of our endeavor?
- Are there elements of our idea that could actually hurt our mission?
- Are our objectives measurable?
- Do our objectives provide healthy boundaries for engaging the idea’s breadth or scope?
- How do we hold our ideas accountable to our objectives?
- Why are we working on this idea again?
Are there any guiding questions or processes you’ve developed in this area of aligning ideas with objectives and objectives to mission?
