Broad statements such as this are made every day - often by senior management. And they can be really hard to deliver against. What does improving profitability actually mean? How is profitability measured currently? What would an improvement look like? Is improving profitability even possible or within your control?
If you’re going to take responsibility for delivering this objective for your boss, it’s really important that you’re both clear on exactly what’s being asked for and agreed to.
A great framework to use is SMART. SMART stands for:
- Specific
- Measureable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timely
Using SMART forces you to get specific. Let’s take a look at how it works in practice.
Original request
The original request from the boss was “I want to improve the profitability of our app”. This statement is very broad and hard to measure.
You know that one of the main drivers of profitability within the app are subscriptions. So you decide to rewrite the objective, using SMART. The new objective is “I want to increase app subscriptions by 5% in 6 months.”
Specific
Rather than the broad objective of improving profitability, we’ve focused in on one aspect, increasing app subscriptions.
Measurable
Our target is to Increase app subscriptions by 5%. This assumes that we have a benchmark of current subscriptions and a way to track new subscriptions.
Achievable
Is increasing subscriptions by 5% in 6 months doable? How much is within your control? There may be factors that you’re dependent on that you don’t have control over that impact subscriptions e.g. frequency of content released to the app, resourcing within your company
Relevant
Do the project stakeholders agree that this objective is important? Does the objective match the overall business goals?
Timely
Is 6 months a realistic timeframe?
Now that you’ve reworked the original objective, you can take it back to your boss for approval before starting the project. This will give your project a much better chance of success. And more importantly, means you’re more likely to have good news to present to your boss at the end of your project!
