Goal Setting and company performance are interlinked. Ninety percent of businesses that set challenging goals achieve them within a year. If you are looking for a time-tested road to success for your company, create one by setting challenging goals for the upcoming year.
How to set goals for your small business
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Define your objectives
The first part to setting company goals is to define what goals you would like to achieve in your business. Gather your staff with input from all levels and write down a list of goals for the next year. The list can include financial increases, a higher closing rate on sales, improved delivery times, even something as simple as a better work-life balance. Be sure to embrace an open discussion of your past achievements and plans for growth.
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Create a breakdown of your goals
Research and discover a baseline of where to start. If increasing sales is the end goal, then a record of the previous year’s sales would be the base line. Be sure to gather details such as what items sold, peak seasons sales and trends. The goal of achieving greater sales relies on information including what sells best and what it takes to sell more. Consider adding similar items to enhance your bestsellers.
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Prioritize
After gathering the information on sales growth from previous years. Make a chart to see your overall growth rate. From here you can estimate a trajectory of what might be expected next year. If your company is growing at five to ten percent per year, don’t expect to double that. Be reasonable with maybe an additional three to five percent beyond your expected growth rate. At this point set specific goals to help you achieve your objectives. Start small and be sure to prioritize the most important goals first.
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Commitment
It takes dedication to grow a company and a focused team willing to commit to reach the company goals. After all, if they succeed, the company succeeds. One method is to empower the staff through stewardship over tasks. Granting employees, the freedom to carry out duties in a method of their choosing builds trust and inspires a strong dedication. Even Bryan in widget sales will agree, knowing that he can sell all the purple ones first with wild abandon.
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Track goal progress with a focus on team building
They say the best way to eat an elephant is to take small bites. Set weekly benchmarks and chart the progress made toward reaching the final goal. Set aside time with the staff to track and review progress. If your small company can support teams, a little competition can be healthy. Be certain to focus on what is working. Here an open discussion can help teams with less success discover what is working.
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Reward
Cookies and bagels are fine for small meetings. However, a progress bonus raises the stakes. Create a budget for quarterly or biyearly rewards that are significant and not just a trite trinket. This builds confidence and reinforces the principle that reaching goals is rewarding.
What is Kanban and what are the Rules?
Per Kanbanzone.com comes the following about the Kanban History – From Manufacturing to Knowledge Work:
The Kanban methodology was pioneered by Toyota through the leadership of Taiichi Ohno, who is known as the father of the Toyota Production System. Ohno recognized the inefficiencies in their production line and sought ways to better their processes. A car is definitely a complex product to build; with around 30,000 parts and components moving through the assembly line things can get inefficient. Ohno saw how unnecessary inventory and low levels of productivity were apparent in their operations and decided to take action.
The Origins of Kanban
Ohno took a basic idea from the supermarket onto Toyota’s manufacturing process. Think about how you would do your grocery shopping. More often than not, you would only schedule a trip to the supermarket when you’re running low on items. You’d know this upon checking your stock at home and finding an empty pantry. You then go to the store and get your desired items from the grocery shelves. When supermarket crew notice shelves running low on a certain product, that’s when they replenish it. This then ensures that there’s enough stock for upcoming customers.
Visual signals like an empty pantry or supermarket shelf prompt people to pull from preceding processes.
Thinking of it in the same way. Production processes can use pull systems to produce and move parts within the assembly line. In Toyota, they adapted the supermarkets stock concept to help line workers recognize when and in what amount certain parts need to be prepared and transported. The preceding process, who oversees making the parts ready, supplies the parts to the next process when they need it and only in the amount needed.
To easily communicate within the shop floor, they used visual signals in the form of cards to signal their need for a component. And this is where Kanban goes into play.
In the world of product development, Kanban is a popular framework used to implement agile and DevOps software development. Per Atlassian.com It requires real-time communication of capacity and full transparency of work. It is all about visualizing your work, limiting work in progress, and maximizing efficiency (or flow). Kanban teams focus on reducing the time a project takes (or user story) from start to finish. They do this by using a Kanban board and continuously improving their flow of work.
The five core properties used to guide teams in implementing Kanban into their process are:
1- Visualize the workflow.
2- Limit work-in-progress.
3- Measure and manage flow.
4- Make process policies explicit.
5- Use models to recognize improvement opportunities.
How can I apply Kanban rules to my small business?
The rules of Kanban are not so different from the guidelines in the new year goal setting outlined above. Foremost is the visualization or chart for staff to see and follow. Make a commitment. Be efficient, manage and track your progress. Follow guidelines for better efficiency and communicate to discover ways to improve. For more about Kanban check out the following links https://kanbanzone.com/ and https://www.atlassian.com/
For additional information on goal-setting for small business, or on how to apply Kanban Rules, please contact us at the Trinity Valley Small Business Development Center – SBDC – TVCC – Serving Henderson, Anderson, Van Zandt, Rains, and Kaufman Counties.
Trinity Valley SBDC is a partnership program with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the State of Texas, and Trinity Valley Community College. Advising services are offered by Trinity Valley SBDC without regard to race, color, age, national origin, religion, sex, or disability. Special provisions will be made for limited English-speaking individuals and those with disabilities. Those interested may contact us at 903-675-7403.
The North Texas Small Business Development Center Network is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration and Dallas College. The North Texas SBDC is an Accredited Member of the Association of Small Business Development Centers. SBDCs are supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration and extended to the public on a non-discriminatory basis. The SBA cannot endorse any products, opinions or services of any external parties or services. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Language assistance services are available for limited English proficient individuals.
All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Small Business Administration or other funding partners.