The second part of Terry Schmidt’s book Strategic Management Made Simple focuses in on the relationship between the four critical strategic questions and how they are captured visually in the Logical Framework approach. As a review from the first part of his book which introduced them, those four critical strategic questions are:
–What are we trying to accomplish and why?
–How will we measure success?
–What other conditions must exist?
–How do we get there?
The third chapter of this second part focuses in on the third critical strategic question, “What other conditions must exist?”
1. Introduction
The answer to the first question will yield you the Objectives, which are the …
–Outcome of the project (the answer to the question “What are we trying to accomplish?”)
–Purpose of the project (“why is the project being done from the standpoint of the customer–what business need is the product of the project is trying to fill?”)
–Goal of the project (“why is the project being done from the standpoint of the organization doing the project–what strategic need are the benefits from the project going to meet?”)
These answers to the first question involve vertical linkages between the Outcome, Purpose, and Goal objectives.
The answer to the second question will ask you “how do you measure success” for EACH LEVEL of the objectives. The four tips for meaningful measures of success are:
- Valid–they accurately measure the Objectives
- Verifiable–clear, non-subjective evidence exists or can be obtained
- Targeted–quality, quantity, and time targets are pinned down
- Independent–each level in the hierarchy of Objectives (Outcome, Purpose, Goal) has separate measures
These answers to the second question involve horizontal linkages between the objectives and their success measures.
The answers to the third question will involve diagonal linkages between the objectives and the assumptions that you need to make in order for them to be achieved and measured.
TO BE CONTINUED
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