End concepts

An End is a statement about what the business seeks to accomplish. An End is that it does not include any indication of how it will be achieved. End Concepts are Vision, Goal, and Objective. Goal and Objective can be categorized into ways to get a Desired Result. You should document who defined the End (Vision, Goal, or Objective) and at what point in time, so that an audit trail exists for future reference.

According to the Business Rules Group, a Vision is a statement about the future state of the organization, without regard to how it is to be achieved. It is the ultimate, possibly unattainable, state that the organization wants to achieve.

A Vision is often compound, rather than focused toward one particular aspect of the business problem. A vision is amplified by goals.

According to the Business Rules Group, a Goal is a statement about a state or condition of the organization to be brought about or sustained through appropriate Means.

▪Goals amplify the vision: A Goal amplifies a Vision: it indicates what must be satisfied on a continuing basis to effectively attain the Vision. A Goal should generally be attainable and should be more specifically oriented to a single aspect of the business problem than a Vision. A Goal should be narrow in focus; enough that it can be quantified by Objectives. A Vision, in contrast, is too broad or grandiose for it to be specifically measured directly by Objectives. However, determining whether a statement is a Vision or a Goal is often impossible without in-depth knowledge of the context and intent of the business planners.

▪Goals are quantified by objectives: Compared to an Objective, a Goal tends to be longer term, qualitative (rather than quantitative), general (rather than specific), and ongoing.

▪Goals are supported by strategies.

▪Improve quality of service.

▪Be considered as a first-rate hotel for business travelers.

In the Owner property, you specify the Organizational Unit that has specified the Goal. It is important to understand who has specified the goal. If you do not know the responsible party for a goal, it might be hard in the future to track down the reason for it, which might lead to perpetuation of unnecessary goals. Goals might have been created because of requirements that have long since become defunct, or to temporarily build workrounds in systems that did not fully support business needs. Knowing the owner enables you to challenge the goal to see if it is still necessary.

According to the Business Rules Group, an Objective is a statement of an attainable, time-targeted, and measurable target that the organization wants to meet in order to achieve its Goals. An Objective must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based.

▪Objectives quantify goals: Objectives provide the basis for measures to determine whether a Goal is being achieved. Objectives differ from Goals in that Objectives should always be time-targeted and measurable. Compared to a Goal, an Objective tends to be short term, quantitative (rather than qualitative), specific (rather than general), and not continuing beyond its timeframe (which can be cyclical).

▪Objectives are achieved by tactics

▪Attainable. If Objectives are not attainable, the business plans are unrealistic and will fail.

▪Time-targeted. All Objectives should be targeted to either a specific time frame (for example, “Will be met by September 1, 2018”) or a relative time frame (for example, “Will be met within two years”).

▪Measurable. An Objective should have a specific criteria for determining whether it is being met. This criteria might be exact (for example, “on-time 95% of the time”), or at least provide a basis for making a “yes or no” determination (for example, “up and running”). These criteria might be the basis for certain Business Rules that are created to figure out if a Business Objective is being met.

▪Number of Complaints received in 2Q 2017 should be 20 percent less than 2Q 2016.

▪By September 1, 2016, number of complaints received should be 20 percent less than levels of 2nd Quarter, 2014.

▪Increase number of reservations to 1000 a day by July 1, 2016.

In the Owner property, you specify the Organizational Unit that has specified the objective. It is important to understand who has specified the objective. If you do not know the responsible party for an objective, it might be hard in the future to track down the reason for it, which might lead to perpetuation of unnecessary objectives. Objectives might have been created because of requirements that have long since become defunct, or to temporarily build workrounds in systems that did not fully support business needs. Knowing the owner enables you to challenge the objective to see if it is still necessary.