Posts

Posted on

Setting your Strategy (V1)

Have you ever wondered why is it so difficult to get started on something you always wanted to do? What keeps the great athletes focused on the final goal?. If you don’t set a specific goal such as I want to lose 15 pounds, your brain will be filled with excuses. By setting a strategy you can alway keep your mind on the goal. So what is the strategy? When do you implement the strategy? Why do I need a strategy to get things done? 

Prerequisite 

There are multiple flavors of strategy, it really depends on what you are trying to do: 

  • Build a new app
  • Start a new business 
  • Lose weight 

For individuals or a team; a north star needs to be established. In most literature this is referred to as the Vision and Mission Statement.

Setting your Team Strategy 

Life is a competition whether in sports or business, teams with the best strategy win. Not only once, but continue to win, until a better team comes forward.

Here are the steps:

  1. If you are a team leader, you need to set a vision for the team to move forward” e.g “If you are an NBA team,  your vision is to “ Win the Larry O’Brian Trophy”
  2. Set a plan, with high level milestones. Using the NBA example, recruitment by X date, Wins by X date, perfected plays by X date.
    1. Tips: do not confuse your strategy plan with a project plan, or details of deliverables ( Think C-suite thinking)
  3. Be prepared to change your strategy, if it is not working. Many companies have a great strategy first but forget to change. Others will catch up, at that point your strategy has to keep changing to make your moves unpredictable.  

Setting your Individual strategy 

Just like a team, you need to set your vision/final goal before you can come up with your strategy. It is more difficult to set up a personal goal, because there is no one other than yourself to keep you accountable.

Here are the steps:

  1. Come up with a long term, aggressive but attainable goal: If you need help determining your goal, read the article on goal creation.
  2. Create a milestone plan, and add specific dates of when you are planning to reach each. For e.g if your goal is income independence, you can say you are planning to be making X by X month.
  3. Keep your motivation jar full, by exercising and looking for the reasons why you have decided to do what you do.
  4. Keep it simple, I have noticed that once my goals become complicated they quickly fade.  
Posted on

OKRs vs SMART Goals vs KPIs vs SLIs/ SLOs

There are many forms to set goals:  for a team, an individual or even a system. In the article below I will walk through what each of the framework is and when it is best to use.

Definition:

OKRs: Objective and Key Results. 

  • Objectives need to be ambitious, and feel a bit uncomfortable.
    • E.g: Ship a full feature, create a new customer flow 
  • Key results are measurable and should be graded based on their completion. Google uses a scale from 0-1.0
    • E.g: ship API Y by June 7th, Increase hires by X 
    • The sweet spot usually .70 anything more be categorized as sandbagging too easy, less would be the goal was too difficult.
  • Why use this framework?  Enables teams and individuals to set ambitious goals. OKRs if followed properly allow for people to attain what they thought they could not. 

SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time based.

  • Specific: For example, “I want to learn to play basic piano songs”, “I want to lose 20 pounds” and “ I want to finish a ½ marathon”.
  • Measurable: You need to be able to select indicators that can be measurable.
    • In our Piano example we can use treble clef proficiency, for the weight example you can weigh yourself daily or weekly and lastly for running, you can measure how far you are able to run. 
  • Achievable: If you have never run any race of any kind then trying to finish a half marathon, can be too much.
    • Beginning with a 5K and going up from that distance becomes more attainable. 
  • Relevant:  Deals a little bit of where you are in life.
    • Perhaps you want to run, to lose weight in order to attend an upcoming wedding. 
  • Time based: a timeline of when you are expected to complete 
  • Why use this framework? While more work than the previous OKRs, more information is provided here. Leaders sometimes don’t want people to sale themselves short, many organizations just want to be able to obtain consistent output from employees.

KPIs – Key Performance Indicators 

  • KPIs are considered legacy in many places,  as  teams have transitioned  to OKRs or goals. However there are companies, and leadership teams that use KPIs to determine the health of the business. Some examples are “ Revenue per customer”, “ Average cost for feature launch”, “Average cost of new hire”

SLIs & SLOs- Service Line Indicators, and Service Line Objective”

  • I won’t dive in too much here, as these are used for systems performance and expectations. But what you need to know is that teams are usually not measured using this methodology,

What’s the point?

Framework creates a route in a map to help you achieve your goals. It narrows the path for you to see the steps required to get to the finish line. In my opinion, pick whichever framework you feel fit your situation,  don’t get stuck with one or the other. 

Once you have chosen your framework what is next? We all have great ideas, however what the majority of us lack is execution. It is difficult to stay motivated, especially at the beginning when  incentives are only internal motivations.  Find that

Posted on

Strategic vs Tactical

Questions of what is tactical? What is strategic? What makes a person tactical or strategic? Always loomed in my head and remained a mystery up until now. 

Definitions based on Merriam-Webster dictionary: 

  • Strategic: Of great importance within an integrated whole or to a planned effect
  • Tactical: Of tactics of or relating to small-scale actions serving a larger purpose

The strategic person:

  • Has a future plan and goals to meet identified objectives 
  • Uses data and trends to formulate decision 
  • Able to see the future based on what is happening now, think of chess; if you move a piece think of the trigger it will have. 
  • Knows their space limitations and opportunities 

The tactical person:

  • Focuses on immediate needs 
  • Cares more about operations and stability 
  • Usually a subject matter expert in one area
  • Usually has limited scope to what they can take on
  • Usually stays within their limits 

Quick Summary on work styles: 

TacticalStrategic
Reactive Proactive
Event oriented Goal oriented 
Black and white Gray, ambiguous 

Delivery 

Tactical

  • Delivers output instead of outcomes 
  • Prioritize quantity over value 
  • Considered to be an order, think the restaurant waiter. Usually operates without a Vision or a long term goal. 

Strategic

  • Focuses on outcomes
  • Works on planned tasks, tied to the vision and the team’s strategy 
  • Pivots occasionally to maintain alignment to the main objective 

Bringing it together:

Every team and individual needs a combination of both tactical and strategic focus, the key is balance. You want to have goals and long term plans, but you also need the ability to execute and make consistent progress towards the finish line. Based on my personal view of high performance individuals and teams there is a 30% strategic and 70% tactical balance; however there are times where strategic work will consume the majority of your time, initially at the start of the new product or project. 

Every product needs a vision and a strategy to drive the teams forward. Metrics will be essential to your success.. In a fast paced environment, significant data needs to be immediately available. If you are not trending in the desired direction, then you need to plan what needs to change. If you are trending positively then you need to determine how to continue the trend.