Strategic Management: Creating and Prioritizing Strategic Objectives

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"Strategic management consists of the analysis, decisions, and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages," according to Gregory Dess in the book Strategic Management (2005).
Strategic management does not state how the mission or vision will be accomplished. Strategic objectives state the desired end results. "Strategic objectives are used to operationalize the mission statement. That is, they help to provide guidance on how the organization can fulfill or move toward the “high goals” in the goal hierarchy-the mission
and vision," states Dess. 

SMART Strategic Objectives

The best strategic objectives state what is to be accomplished in SMART terms: specific, measurable, attainable/achievable, relevant and time-bound. A strategic objective should be specific, citing the the exact level of performance expected for the objective. It should also be measurable. For example, instead of an objective that seeks to achieve a 10 percent market share increase, the effective objective would seek to achieve a 10 percent market share increase by December 2012. Also, if the objective is too difficult to be achieved, it might not be realistic.

Prioritizing Strategic Objectives

After establishing strategic objectives, long-term strategy must be aligned with short-term actions that are prioritized. Develop a to-do list for the strategic objectives. In essence, the to-do list answers the question of what needs to be accomplished to achieve the objective. This may entail identifying needed financial allocations, adjusting internal business processes, or increasing institutional learning to improve and change existing competencies.

To identify what tasks on the to-do list need to be completed first, begin with a micro-level prioritization that delegates priorities by 1) high priority, 2) medium priority, and 3) low priority.  Tasks with hard deadlines and high risk tasks are generally higher priorities. For example, the economic impact or cost component of the task may result in ranking the task as a high priority risk requiring a higher review priority over other tasks.

Perform an inter-level assessment after prioritizing all tasks for the strategic objectives into high, medium and low level priorities. For example, all tasks listed as high priority should be ranked by order of importance within the high priority category. This should also be applied to medium and low priority tasks.

References: Institute of Medicine of the National Academies: SMART Objectives