Achieving and aligning measurable business goals

Goal alignment across all levels of an organisation can be a daunting task. But top-level management recognises that without goal alignment, employees become disconnected from the organisation's vision, strategy and objectives.

One of the most frustrating aspects of goal-oriented project and performance management is ensuring that everyone involved is using a common agreed set of definitions, and that the business requirements are correctly translated into IT requirements. Organisations need a bridge between the business and the technical aspects of measuring and managing goals.

Effective Intelligence, in association with Alan Snow, is introducing GADM (Goal-Aligned Data Management), the new technique for improving the setting and measuring of data goals, in the project and performance management environments. International IT, business and data management coach Alan Snow developed GADM to help organisations define and agree measurable goals, and report on progress at several levels and/or time intervals. The value of GADM is in avoiding the inherent risks of misalignment that are present when a process involves both business and IT components.

CEO of Effective Intelligence, Julian Ardagh says the association with GADM is a good fit because "Alan has deep experience in bridging the divide between IT and business to achieve common objectives for both areas."

GADM, a first for the South African market, is a combination of methodology, IT, reporting processes and hands-on assistance to maximise a consistent and well-defined goal management process. GADM ensures that the entire goal management cycle of events - formulating goals and measurement criteria, collecting and collating the data needed to measure on report progress, and ultimately the progress evaluation phase - are aligned, standardised and made consistent. The result is a more effective and efficient process for goal management, and faster identification of divergence or other situations that require action/reaction.

GADM defines unambiguous and measurable business goals, it identifies and manages the data required for tracking performance related to the specified goals and delivers a multi-level set of periodic, standardised 'goal progress reports'. As a powerful management support process, GADM assists project and performance management teams to ensure business goals are correctly defined and the correct goal-relevant items are being collected, monitored and reported via IT processes. The result is that each progress, towards each business goal, is accurately tracked and periodically reported; this allows faster identification of progress issues and the necessary adjustments to the goal setting or reporting parameters are documented.

As a business-driven project, GADM consists of business process analysis and IT (data management) components. A typical GADM initiative will involve one business analyst and up to three IT staff, depending on the business requirements. GADM will deliver positive benefits between three and six months after commencement.