Managing Goals

A goal is an outcome your organization wants to reach, such as "Reduce operating costs by $100 million" or "Grow EBITDA by $150 million by 2030". Setting a target for the goal, and linking it to the benefits that will deliver it, makes it measurable: the goal's dashboard compares its target with what its benefits plan, forecast, and have actually delivered, so you can see whether the initiatives you've chosen will get you there.

This article covers both the Advanced and Simple Models. Before goals can be created, an administrator needs to set up goal types and allow them where they're needed — see Configuring Goal Classifications (Advanced Model) or Configuring Goal Classifications (Simple Model).

How goals work

1. A goal is created on an initiative, usually at the enterprise or program level, with a unit, such as a currency, and a start and end financial year.
2. Benefits with the same unit, on the initiative and every initiative beneath it, contribute to the goal automatically. Filters narrow down which ones count, such as by classification or stage.
3. A target is set for each financial year — on the goal itself, or shared out as targets on the initiatives beneath it, which add up to the goal's.
4. The goal's dashboard compares the target with the contributing benefits' plan, forecast, and actuals, level by level through the hierarchy.

Creating a goal

To create a goal:

1. Open the initiative's Properties page.
2. Under Goals, click New Goal. The New Goal for [initiative] side sheet opens.
3. Under Details, fill in the goal's settings, described below. Name, Start Date, and End Date are required.
4. Under Additional Fields, fill in any custom fields set up for goals.
5. Under Contributing Benefits, set which benefits count towards the goal — see Choosing contributing benefits.
6. Click Create, or Discard to close without creating the goal.

Then set the goal's target on its Adjust Target tab — see Setting the target.

The Goals section of the Properties page lists the initiative's goals, with their dates and owner. Check Include Archived to show archived goals too. Click a goal's name to open it.

Goal settings

• Classification — the type of goal.
• Goal Unit — the unit the goal is measured in, such as US Dollar. Only benefits in the same unit can contribute to it.
• Values — Cumulative, where each year adds to the ones before it, or Not Cumulative, where each year stands on its own.
• Name and Description — what the goal is.
• Start Date and End Date — the first and last financial years the goal covers, such as FY27 to FY30. Goals are reported by financial year.
• Target Reporting Year For This Goal — the financial year the dashboard's summary, and its table's Planned and Forecast columns, report on. Leave as None to report on the goal's end year.
• Goal Owner — the person responsible for the goal.

To change a goal's settings later, open the goal and click Edit. The same side sheet opens.

Choosing contributing benefits

Every benefit, or impact, with the same unit as the goal, on the goal's initiative and every initiative beneath it, contributes to the goal by default. Use the options under Contributing Benefits to include only the ones that should count:

• Classification — only benefits of the chosen classifications. Leave as All Classifications to include every classification.
• Stage Gate Stage — only benefits of initiatives at the chosen stages. Leave as All Stages to include every stage.
• Custom fields on benefits, such as Value Driver or Recurring / One-off — only benefits with the chosen values. Leave as All Options to include every value.

As you set the filters, the section's header shows how many benefits match, such as 24 matching benefits.

Setting the target

To set the target:

1. Open the goal.
2. Click the Adjust Target tab.
3. In the Ledger, enter the goal's Target for each financial year, in the goal's unit. The total is shown at the top.
4. Click Save, or Undo to discard your changes.

The Goal Target chart above the ledger shows the target over time.

Sharing the target out

A goal's target can be broken down into targets for the initiatives beneath it. On the goal's dashboard, click Add Target on an initiative's row. This creates a goal on that initiative that contributes to this one, with the same reporting year. It needs the same unit as this goal. Set its own target, as above.

Where a goal has no target of its own, its target is the total of the targets that contribute to it.

The goal's dashboard

A goal opens on its Dashboard tab. The plan, forecast, and actual values on it all come from the goal's contributing benefits, so you can see how they're tracking against the goal's target.

• Summary — the target, plan, and forecast for the reporting year, with the plan's and forecast's Variance to target, and the forecast's Variance to plan.
• Chart — the contributing benefits' Baseline, Plan, Forecast, and Actual values for each financial year, against the goal's Target. Turn on Cumulative to show running totals.
• Goal Filters — a summary of which benefits are counted, such as the unit, classifications, and stages.
• Contributing initiatives — a table of the initiatives whose benefits contribute, in their hierarchy, with each one's Classification, stage, plan and forecast for the reporting year, and variance. Each level's values add up the levels beneath it. Expand a row to see the initiatives beneath it, and click a name to open it.

From the table:

• Add Benefit — create a benefit on that initiative, to contribute to the goal.
• Add Target — give that initiative its own share of the goal's target — see Sharing the target out. Shown where the initiative doesn't have one yet, and its classification allows goals.

The goal's custom field values are shown at the top of the dashboard. Use Edit to change the goal, and the paperclip button to attach documents.

Archiving and deleting a goal

To archive a goal:

1. Open the goal.
2. Click the archive button, at the top right of its dashboard.
3. Confirm. The goal is archived.

An archived goal can then be restored or permanently deleted, like other items in Amplify. A goal must be archived before it can be deleted. To find archived goals, check Include Archived in the Goals section of the initiative's Properties page.

An example

A company's Mergers and Acquisitions team wants to cut operating costs by $100 million over the three financial years after a merger.

1. The goal — the program manager opens the Post Merger Integration program's Properties page, and adds the goal "Reduce operating costs by $100 million", in US Dollars, from FY27 to FY29.
2. The contributing benefits — they limit the goal to benefits of the Cost Reduction classification, and filter on a custom field so only merger-related savings count.
3. The target — savings will build up as the restructuring takes effect, so on Adjust Target they enter $20 million for FY27 and FY28, and $60 million for FY29.
4. Sharing it out — from the goal's dashboard, they click Add Target on each workstream, and give each its share of the savings.
5. Tracking it — as the program's projects deliver, the program manager uses the goal's dashboard to compare the target with what the benefits plan and forecast, and drills into any workstream that's falling short.

For attaching documents to goals, see Documents. For the benefits that contribute to goals, see Managing Benefits.