Wondering what’s the difference between “Goals” and “Objectives”? At first sight, these two terms seem to be synonymous, but actually, there is a drastic difference between them. Understanding this difference is crucial to achieving any business success. Once you learn how goals differ from objectives, you will realize how important it is to set and manage both of them.
In this piece, we take a look at:
- What are the business goals?
- What are the objectives and how to outline them?
- How to connect your goal with your objectives in practice?
- And finally: how to manage both goals and objectives with KeepSolid Goals?
Let’s find answers to all these questions and clear up the difference!
What are the business goals
A goal is an abstract statement of the desired outcome that you and your company aim to achieve in the long-term future. So, in other words, it is the ultimate purpose that your business is working towards.
Setting clear and achievable goals is critical for every company or organization to make progress and move ahead.
Here is the list of most common business goals:
- Increase your brand awareness
- Build a database of loyal customers
- Increase management efficiency
- Expand your channel partner network
- Become an industry leader
To get more information about goals, check out our comprehensive article on how to outline and set business goals.
What are the objectives and how to outline them
Objectives are milestones that pave the way to achieving your business goal. To determine your objectives, divide your complex goal into smaller steps that should be taken to achieve it. These steps are called objectives. They are much easier to manage, evaluate, and track.
For instance, to become an industry leader, you could pursue the following objectives:
- Increase your sales by at least 20% in the next 3 months
- Run Facebook ads to promote your products and services
- Create new content regularly - for example, twice a week
How to connect your goal with your objectives in practice
As mentioned before, both goals and objectives describe the desired outcome that your business is working towards. However, a goal describes where your company wants to be in the future and doesn’t explain how to get there, whereas objectives show particular steps you should take to make a progress. That’s why you can’t achieve your goal without setting clear objectives first.
Goals without objectives can never be accomplished while objectives without goals will never bring you to the desired outcome.
To effectively manage your business workflow and achieve the desired result, you need to set up both goals and objectives. Here are some key steps you should keep in mind:
1. Figure out your main goal and break it into more concrete objectives
It’s always worth it to take the time to properly set a clear business goal, as well as break it down into separate achievable objectives.
2. Make sure your goal and objectives are SMART
Setting SMART objectives is essential to reach them in the defined timeframe. Check out how to set up SMART goals and objectives and see how they work for your business.
3. Add tasks that need to be done to achieve each of your objectives
You also need to prioritize all these tasks, set their deadlines, assign relevant team members, and monitor their progress. When all tasks that belong to the objective are completed - hurrah, you’ve achieved this objective.
How to manage both goals and objectives
To make your goals and objectives management less of a burden, we highly recommend you to start with specialized project management tools. A great example of such a tool is KeepSolid Goals. It’s a web-based application with robust goals and objectives management features.
Using this application, you can easily visualize your goals and objectives in different ways, such as Mind Map, Kanban board, Sprints, and Roadmap. You can monitor their progress, keep your team's work on schedule, and stay focused on the ongoing tasks as well.
Benefits you can get with the Goals app
- Clearly see everything that's on the plate
Structure your goals, objectives, and tasks in the form of the Mind Map and easily navigate through your project: check completed tasks, monitor ongoing objectives, and see everything that has to be done without going into too much detail.
- Be aware of the current state of affairs
Use the Report feature to track your total objective score, monitor key result plan quality, view deadline reports, and much more. When you know what’s going on you can easily plan further works and quickly make necessary changes to prevent possible issues.
- Stay on the same page with your team
Thanks to the Team Collaboration feature, you can keep your team's work on schedule, streamline the collaboration process, and complete objectives more efficiently. Create a new team, invite your teammates, assign appropriate roles to them, and pave the way to the desired outcome together!
All these benefits help you to increase your business productivity and make the KeepSolid Goals application a great all-in-one solution for both goals and objectives management.
The bottom line of goals and objectives
- Goals are the abstract statements of the desired outcome that you and your company want to achieve in the long-term future and they don’t explain how to get there.
- Objectives are milestones that pave your way to achieving a business goal. They show particular steps your business should take to make a progress.
- Goals without objectives can never be accomplished while objectives without goals will never bring you to the desired outcome.
- To organize your goals and objectives in one place and keep them that way, we recommend you to get started with KeepSolid Goals - a web-based application that combines the most common and effective project management features.
