Strategise method guide
Business Aims
Business Aims makes strategic intent explicit through outcomes, measures, horizons, owners and confidence.
Beginner-friendly guide · 4 min read
What Business Aims does
Business Aims makes strategic intent explicit through outcomes, measures, horizons, owners and confidence.
Business aims express the outcomes that a strategy process is intended to achieve. They provide direction and criteria for judging opportunities, gaps, capabilities and roadmap initiatives.
A useful aim describes a future outcome, who or what benefits, how progress will be measured, the horizon and who is accountable. It avoids confusing activity with achievement.
Innovation-management systems require direction, objectives and aligned action. Aims provide the target conditions against which gaps, options, capabilities and roadmap items can be assessed.[1][2]
Aims connect purpose to measures, ownership and the choices made in the toolkit.
- 1Purpose
- 2Outcome
- 3Measure
- 4Horizon
- 5Owner and decisions
InnovationFlow explanatory schematic, synthesised from the method sources[1][2].
Understand the method
The parts in plain language
When to use it
- At the start of a strategy flow or portfolio review.
- When tools are producing activity without a shared definition of success.
A practical workflow
- 1
Translate leadership intent into outcome-oriented aims.
- 2
Add measures, target values, horizons, owners and confidence.
- 3
Resolve overlap and tension between aims.
- 4
Connect later analyses and roadmap items back to the relevant aim.
Fictional worked example
Example: an industrial-service aim
This example is illustrative rather than a reported case. A leadership team turns a broad digital ambition into an assessable aim.
Observation:“Become a digital leader” has no observable outcome.
Implication:It cannot guide prioritisation or review.
Observation:Increase service value by preventing customer downtime.
Implication:The customer and business result are explicit.
Observation:Reach 30 per cent remote resolution across priority equipment by 2029.
Implication:Roadmap items can now be tested against a target.
From analysis to decision
How to interpret the result
- 1Keep the number of aims governable.
- 2Test whether every aim can distinguish a relevant choice from an irrelevant one.
- 3Link roadmap items and evidence back to the aim they serve.
The interpretation guidance is an InnovationFlow synthesis of[1][2].
What a useful output looks like
Common pitfalls
- Avoid activity statements that do not describe an outcome.
- Do not create more aims than the organisation can meaningfully govern.
References and method basis
- [1]International Organization for Standardization (2024). Innovation management system - Requirements. ISO 56001:2024. Source ↗International standard
- [2]Phaal, R. and Muller, G. (2009). An architectural framework for roadmapping: Towards visual strategy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 76(1), 39–49. Source ↗Peer-reviewed research
This guide synthesises the named sources into practical questions for strategy and innovation work. It does not claim that using a tool by itself produces a successful decision.