Objectives Hierarchy

Recently we have been discussing the use of hierarchy in decision-model "objectives." For example, this is an Objective with a series of sub-objectives (e.g. the sub-objectives drive the top objective):

Expand and accelerate business unit revenue growth
--Grow product x revenue
--Grow product q revenue
--Grow product y revenue
--Grow product z revenue

We've used these "hierarchy problems" to create sub-models. For example, "Accelerate Revenue Growth" might be the goal in this case. Products x, z, q, and y might be alternative ways to accelerate the revenue for the business unit.

One might then ask the question, "what Objectives are we trying to achieve with theaccelerating revenue growthgoal?" This, in itself, then becomes an interesting model to study the implications of that question. The Objectives in this example could be the "strategic objectives" of the business that drive potential revenue growth.

In the model above I have done a pairwise assessment of these objectives and determined that "expanding major account teams" and "developing alternative channels" represent the most important drivers of accelerated revenue generation. So the logic follows that doing these things should help me accelerate revenue growth (i.e. objectives to reach my goal).

Then we can take our 4 (fictitious) product categories and rank them against each Objective (e.g. growing product x revenue will have a HIGH impact on expanding major account teams).

Conversely, we could say thatgrowing product y revenue will have a LOW impact on meeting the major account team Objective. After ranking all of them I can see that product x and z are going to have the greatest influence on achieving my two most important objectives (i.e. account teams and alternative channels), which in turn should drive accelerating revenue growth.

The lack of a hierarchy function actually opens up the discussion to a much wider and more interesting exploration. Having said that, "objective hierarchy" functionality is on the product roadmap assuming we can solve the technical challenges.