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particular strategic objective. Providing context to make results meaningful,
targets represent the organization’s “stretch goals.”
Theme: Descriptive statement representing a major component of a strategy,
as articulated at the highest level in the Vision. Most strategies can be
represented in three to five themes. Themes are most often drawn from an
organization’s internal processes or the customer value proposition, but may
also be drawn from key financial goals. The key is that themes represent
vertically linked groupings of objectives across several scorecard
perspectives (at a minimum, Customer and Internal). Themes are often stated
as catchy phrases or “buzz” words that are easy for the organization to
remember and internalize. Example: “Top Innovator,” “Customer Intimate,”
“Operationally Excellent” “Processes/Tools,” “Thinking,” “Content,” “Pipeline”
(I/T Organization).
Threshold: A means of describing and/or depicting the performance gap in
easily understandable terms. Examples of threshold methods include “lettergrade”
(A/B/C/D/F) and “traffic-light” (green/yellow/red).
Values: Representing an organization’s deeply-held and enduring beliefs, an
organization’s values openly declare how it expects everyone to behave and
are often embedded in its vision.
Value proposition or discipline: Describes how an organization intends to
differentiate itself in the marketplace and what particular value it will deliver to
customers. Many organizations choose one of three “value disciplines” ―
operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy ―
articulated by Treacy and Wiersema in “The Discipline of Market Leaders.”
Vision: A concise statement defining an organization’s long-term direction,
the vision is a summary statement of what the organization ultimately intends
to become five, 10 or even 15 years into the future. It is the organization’s
long-term “dream,” what it constantly strives to achieve. A powerful vision
provides everyone in the organization with a shared mental framework that
helps give form to the often abstract future that lies ahead. Effective visions
provide a word picture of what the organization intends ultimately to become -
which may be five, ten, or fifteen years in the future. This statement should
not be abstract - it should contain as concrete a picture of the desired state as
possible, and also provide the basis for formulating strategies and objectives.
“Wobble” test: A litmus test used to determine whether a given objective is
truly necessary to achieving organizational mission; if an objective can be
dropped from the strategy plan and the organization can still reach your
mission, then the objective is not necessary and should be excluded.
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