Year in Review: Did You Reach Your 2016 Goals?
By Andrew Patricio
December 14, 2016
Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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It’s the end of the year and time to assess how well you performed reaching your 2016 goals. It’s an important process in order to get the data and analysis you need to help determine your 2017 goals, plans and budgets.
What Did We Accomplish In 2016?
Celebrating the wins of you and your team in 2016 is important for building moral. But, take it a step further and identify the “why”. You closed a $200M contract. Congratulations! But why? Did marketing create or improve your lead nurturing program? Did it result from speaking at an industry tradeshow? If you think it’s dumb luck, look harder to understand why you were able to capitalize when opportunity knocked.
Understanding why you won last year is as important as the win itself, because it allows you to replicate the experience and win more in 2017.
Where Did We Fall Short In 2016?
Everybody fails. It’s how the learning is applied that separates winners from losers. So don’t shy away from failure. Embrace it as a lesson. And like all education, you paid a price. Make sure it’s not in vain and identify the obstacles that are preventing you and your team from winning. Did you have a toxic manager that demotivated your team? Did you have a major website failure as a result of improper investment?
Don’t forget the power of process when you evaluate your 2016 failures! Ask yourself, what was the process that led to that failure and how can it be improved in 2017? The new year is a perfect time for fresh starts so don’t be afraid of eliminating something that just isn’t working.
Did We Set The Right Goals And Measurements In 2016?
Business is a learning process with a moving target, so as you evaluate last year’s performance, don’t forget to ask this very basic question; did we have the right goals? Perhaps you failed because there was no possible way to win. Perhaps you won but could have won bigger.
Evaluating the metrics you used to measure progress in achieving those goals is also a valuable exercise. Did they elicit the desired behavior of your team? What should you be measuring instead, or in addition to, in order to identify potential programs sooner.
Take the time to critically evaluate your company’s performance last year so you can augment what worked and mitigate what didn’t in 2017.
What Did We Accomplish In 2016?
Celebrating the wins of you and your team in 2016 is important for building moral. But, take it a step further and identify the “why”. You closed a $200M contract. Congratulations! But why? Did marketing create or improve your lead nurturing program? Did it result from speaking at an industry tradeshow? If you think it’s dumb luck, look harder to understand why you were able to capitalize when opportunity knocked.
Understanding why you won last year is as important as the win itself, because it allows you to replicate the experience and win more in 2017.
Where Did We Fall Short In 2016?
Everybody fails. It’s how the learning is applied that separates winners from losers. So don’t shy away from failure. Embrace it as a lesson. And like all education, you paid a price. Make sure it’s not in vain and identify the obstacles that are preventing you and your team from winning. Did you have a toxic manager that demotivated your team? Did you have a major website failure as a result of improper investment?
Don’t forget the power of process when you evaluate your 2016 failures! Ask yourself, what was the process that led to that failure and how can it be improved in 2017? The new year is a perfect time for fresh starts so don’t be afraid of eliminating something that just isn’t working.
Did We Set The Right Goals And Measurements In 2016?
Business is a learning process with a moving target, so as you evaluate last year’s performance, don’t forget to ask this very basic question; did we have the right goals? Perhaps you failed because there was no possible way to win. Perhaps you won but could have won bigger.
Evaluating the metrics you used to measure progress in achieving those goals is also a valuable exercise. Did they elicit the desired behavior of your team? What should you be measuring instead, or in addition to, in order to identify potential programs sooner.
Take the time to critically evaluate your company’s performance last year so you can augment what worked and mitigate what didn’t in 2017.