From your planning process you need to scale down the numbers from the strategic goals and select numbers for one year out. These become your annual targets, which are critical to your fiscal health and well-being. This is what the stockholders and Wall Street grades you on. Everything you do for the next year should focus on meeting the annual target you set. To set annual targets review your goals and objectives. Examine one objective and determine how much you can accomplish next year. Apply realism to the target based on the previous description of the situational analysis. Repeat the process until targets are set for the remainder of the objectives. Avoid the twin dangers of setting the targets too high or too low.
The first danger of shooting too high comes from the inherent enthusiasm found when planning. It is easy to sign up for more than you can do based on the adrenaline high from the process. To avoid this danger, apply the situational analysis measures and make a determination. Setting targets too low is equally a danger because not enough will be accomplished to put you on the correct climb for your strategic goals. Frequently a low target is set for the first year then repeated the second and third years to produce a hockey stick performance figure. The management rationale is to stay relatively flat for several years to get systems in place or ramp up the activity. This may or may not be valid. Their thinking is that a hockey stick model permits continued mediocre performance rather than demanding improved performance from the plan. Interestingly, each CEO has been able to get the company to rise to the occasion and make the numbers over sustained periods of time.