Goal tracking is well-known in project management. In the complex domain of strategic planning, goals require more advanced performance measurement, data consistency, and contextual depth.
Recent trend analysis in strategic planning shows that more organizations are facing increasing complexity and volatility in their operating environments. In this article, we’ll look at how goal tracking works across both project management and strategic planning contexts.
Essentials of Goal Tracking
Let’s begin with the core principles of goal tracking shared by both project management and strategic planning.
- Goal decomposition. Regardless of the context, complex goals should be broken down into subgoals, milestones, or tasks.
- Progress tracking. For reporting purposes, we need to estimate how far the goal has progressed toward completion.
- Accountability. Goals need owners who are responsible for execution and reporting.
- Budgeting. Goals in both project and strategic contexts are often linked to specific budgets.
Now let’s shift to how this works in strategic planning.
Driving Force: Uncertainty and Complexity
The key difference between project management and strategic planning lies in the degree of uncertainty and complexity involved.
- In project management, we operate in the domain of the known — planning follows predictable patterns.
- In strategic planning, we navigate the unknown — the challenge is to establish and test hypotheses.
For example, if the goal is “prevent critical defects”:
- In project management, we act on specific known defects or roll out predefined prevention initiatives.
- In strategic planning, we first need to identify the root of the problem and test multiple approaches to find what works. This involves engaging more stakeholders, experimenting with different methods, monitoring outcomes, and making continuous adjustments.
This uncertainty and complexity are the main driving forces forcing organizations to shift from purely project-based management to a more strategic approach.
Formulating Goals in a Complex Business Environment
Let’s look at how goal tracking evolves when we move into less defined strategic environments. Suppose we’ve identified low customer satisfaction and need to formulate a goal to improve it.
In a project management, we might set a goal like:
- Improve customer satisfaction by 10%.
Or a SMART goal:
- Improve customer satisfaction by 10% by introducing new engagement techniques, by the end of the quarter.
This works well when we know exactly what to do, how long it will take, and what the expected outcome is.
In strategic planning, however, the landscape is more complex:
- We may need to revisit customer needs and update stakeholder analysis.
- We’ll likely test various approaches and monitor which ones are effective.
In practice:
- We’ll set more milestones or checkpoints, possibly each month or quarter.
- We’ll test hypotheses and gather feedback from our team.
- The goal may evolve to target specific customer segments. As our methods and understanding change over time, it’s hard to define fixed details upfront — which is why SMART goals don’t fit well in strategic planning.
- The goal will be linked by data and context to other parts of the strategy.
At this level, we move from the known to the unknown.
Goal tracking becomes less about ticking off tasks and more about managing ongoing experiments.
Performance Measurement Beyond Progress Tracking
In project management, we quantify goals mainly to track the degree of completion of the work. In strategic planning, quantification is used to make goals more specific and unambiguous.
A vague goal like “increase quality” needs to be supported by specific quality metrics:
- If we focus on quality from the end-user’s perspective, we might track indicators such as “Time to fix critical problems” or “% of recurring issues.”
- If quality is considered in the context of regulatory stakeholders, we might use metrics like “Compliant use of AI” or “Adherence to risk management standards.”
This shift brings different requirements for performance measurement:
- Data consistency and traceability. Goal tracking goes beyond simple completion percentages. Indicators need to be tracked over time, with access to historical data—not just the latest value. Changes to targets should be documented with context, and all updates must be traceable.
- Support for complex KPIs. This includes binary (yes/no) indicators, calculated metrics, weighted indexes, performance-based scales, or dual-scale indicators.
- Normalization of KPIs. Goals often involve a mix of indicators with different measurement methods. To combine them meaningfully, we use normalization techniques based on performance functions.
- Cause and effect relationships. Causality is essential in strategic planning. It requires tracking leading and lagging indicators separately to understand what drives results and what reflects them.
- Integrated risk management. As regulatory demands grow, risk tracking becomes more advanced. Instead of fixed-time risk assessments, we monitor risk likelihood and impact over time.
Specialized strategic planning platforms are well equipped with such functionality. For example, in BSC Designer, you will find tools to ensure data consistency, automate various KPI calculation scenarios, support both leading and lagging indicators, and manage risks in compliance with ISO 31000.
Alignment with Overall Strategy
So far, we’ve looked at the mechanics of goal tracking. But what about the bigger picture?
In project management, goal context is typically limited to:
- Goal decomposition, and
- Linear dependencies
In strategic planning, the context is broader. It includes:
- Cascading high-level strategies into scorecards, and
- Relevance to supporting functions, such as stakeholder analysis, risk registers, or external factor evaluations
This doesn’t directly change how we track goals, but it increases the number of inputs we need to consider.
Conclusions: Choosing the Right Toolkit
The right tools for goal tracking depend on your use case:
- For well-defined goals with clear execution methods, use goal tracking software.
- For goals in complex or exploratory areas that involve hypothesis testing, use strategic planning tools like BSC Designer.
As discussed in our welcome presentation, it’s not a question of either/or — in practice, both types of tools complement each other.
Use project-level tracking tools to execute known tasks efficiently, and strategic tools to explore, validate, and evolve long-term goals in complex environments.
Alexis is a Senior Strategy Consultant and CEO at BSC Designer, with over 20 years of experience in strategic planning. Alexis developed the “5 Step Strategy Implementation System” that helps companies with the practical implementation of their strategies. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and has published over 100 articles on strategy and performance management, including the book “10 Step KPI System”. His work is frequently cited in academic research.