Be concrete: If an army’s objective was to “win” well, that would be great. But it wouldn’t do much to help them figure out what steps to take to get there. Same thing goes for a home décor shop whose objective is to have a good 2015. It’s too vague to be effective, since a good year could mean completely different things from one boutique to another.
Define your reference period: Your objective could be annual, monthly, quarterly… It doesn’t matter what the time frame is, but it needs to be time-bound, so you can verify whether you’ve met your objective.
Make it measurable: For example, for the objective “increase market share” you would ideally add an order of magnitude – 10%, 20%, whatever – to allow you to decide whether the objective has been met, and to assess the effectiveness of your strategies over the course of the reference period.
Be realistic: It’s all fine and well to be ambitious, but try to stay grounded. To keep yourself within the bounds of reality, I’d suggest analyzing your company’s past results, and doing some research into the norms for your industry to get a realistic idea of your potential for growth in your market.
In short, to put it mnemonically… These best practices are best known as SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable or Assignable, Realistic and Timely
3. Strategies: the “how”
Each objective should have associated strategies: what approach(es) will you use to reach your objective?