Setting Strategic Objectives

Even to the uninitiated, one of the easiest analogies to give for Business Performance Management is in the field of sports. If one were to plan on training for a sporting event, say, the Olympics, the ease with which the intent can be stated in a conference room is quite insightful. "We will be a medalist in the 3000m event by 2012". The three components of a well defined strategy is present (a) the domain is qualified - "the 3000m event" (b) the target is quantified - "medalist", meaning one of the top three qualifiers, and (c) the timeframe is defined - in 4 years from today (2012).
Once the strategic intent is crystallized, it is for the strategic planning team to communicate that to the core business functions - sales & marketing, operations and finance. Each of these functions then needs to translate the objectives into what it means for them and communicate that down the chain to the last individual. It is never a one way process. Feedback from various levels goes towards refining and aligning the functional objectives and for setting key performance metrics.
Coming back to our analogy, the intention translates to building the competencies required to deliver the level of performance within a targeted timeframe. This involves physical and psychological dimensions laid out in a well defined training program. But train for what? Is training for the 3000m event any different from training for any other track and field event? An analysis quickly highlights the difference. A participant in the 100m sprint event would train very differently from one in the 3000m event. The 100m event is characterized by an explosive burst of muscular effort that rockets you off the blocks, legs, arms and breathing quickly synchronize into perfection as you power your way down the track in a straight line until the finish. The 3000m event starts without blocks with the runners loosely spread along an arc. The initial pace is hard, but not the same as for the 100m event. What matters here, more than super human strength is stamina and endurance. You have to have a game plan to start with and that needs to be continuously evaluated and altered based on the relative strengths of your co-competitors. The training regime, diet, the cardio-vascular performance, attitude and emotions are designed for optimizing speed and endurance. It is a fine balance between speed and endurance. The current world record for the 3000m event is 7:30:51. Thats just a tad over 2 minutes for each 800m lap. While a 100m sprinter goes about 10 meters per second, a 3000m runner would go at a slower, but still a blistering average of 6.67m a second just to stay in the reckoning. To be able to attain that level of performance requires a careful selection of athletes, a body condition analysis that quantifies the necessary parameters for setting training targets and a regimented and sustained training program. It requires discipline, committment and staying power to remain on the program, and even among the selected few, there will be dropouts. What you acheive at the end of it is a capability tuned for peak performance for a specific event.
Even for those with no sports background, the sequence and buildup is easy to visualize. However, when translated to the domain of business, things begin to fall apart unless there are specialized disciplinces that help with the initial assessment, selection and the subsequent execution. Without such expertise, managers tend to slide into preset indivdualized behaviour patterns and optimize within a narrow functional scope that is generally retrogade and becomes an impediment to acheiving organizational objectives. BPM champions have to be carefully selected before planning for a BPM initiative can commence.