AIMS drives action and results.

In previous session, we said that AIMS are a bit like the organisation’s mission in traditional terms, well a bit, because they are also a bit like goals.

AIMS are more detailed than a mission statement and are action-oriented.

Once again you can use the agile user-story format to define aims (items in brackets are optional);

  • We AIM to do X, so that we can realise Y that supports CAUSE A, or
  • We AIM to do X, so that we can realise Y that helps us fulfil our PURPOSE (in Z manner).

Your PURPOSE should reflect your values/principles. You will most probably not change the purpose of the organisation and any great hurry.

Still, you will from time to time update or define new CAUSES, stop the support of others and will often define new AIMS.

Remember, AIMS focus on specific outcomes, and once you achieve the outcome, you will most probably sustain the outcomes but set new aims to replace the ones achieved.

As a practical example of how to use PURPOSE, CAUSES and AIMS, I will use the Agile ADapT initiative.

The PURPOSE of the ADapT initiative is to:

  • Transform, business thinking, learning and living in the digital age.

Our CAUSES ARE:

Helping everyone to:

  • Create better products and services that customers will embrace and adore,
  • Achieve humanity in customer interactions and the workplace
  • Make business better, work more meaningful and leaving no-one behind

So that meaningful digital transformation and innovation can be achieved everywhere, by everyone in the organisation, in every organisation.

We AIM to achieve this by:

  1. Inspiring organisational leadership by developing programs and interventions to transform business thinking,
  2. Develop people development programs that teach meaningful and innovative management and transformational techniques,
  3. Motivate and inform digital transformation and innovation, by publishing guidance in the form of articles, our website, talks and podcasts and other published works,
  4. Reaching people who would benefit from learning, by leveraging massively transformative technologies, and social platforms, to reach more people in more meaningful ways, and
  5. Ensuring that what we do are appropriate and meaningful, by constantly reviewing and reinventing our method and the future (recently added).

Following the cascade, you can see that our AIMS support both the PURPOSE and the CAUSES of the initiative.

You can also see that each of the AIMS leads to day-to-day business actions that are executed by functional management to ensuring the achievement of the AIMS.

Anyone reading the AIMS and having a bit of organisational context will know what to do at a high level and just as importantly know what NOT to do, because it is not aligned with the organisation’s PURPOSE, CAUSES and AIMS.

The first two AIMS provided material guidance for the development of all programs, a hint on choice if content of programs and gives some direction on marketing interventions.

The third and fourth direct our marketing effort, but each initiative are also in-itself an opportunity to teach, inspire and influence. Although we obviously want people to subscribe to programs when starting their own transformational journey, every bit of outreach is targeted education and meaningful on its own.

ADapT was previously called Business Innovation Circles®, and as BIC went through four significant updates and reviews – you can say that ADapT is V5 of BIC. Although we did this as a matter of course, we decided instead to add it to our aims to make sure we never become complacent!

In summary, if anything that anyone does in the organisation doesn’t lead to one or many of your defined aims, you should question it and most probably discard it as a goal, objective, task or activity!

Why did we say – most probably?

Well, sometimes you do things because you have to do then – you have no choice. Keeping strict records of transactions, or keeping customer data private are legal requirements, they don’t directly support our purpose, causes or aims – but we still need to do that!

  • We can say that our PURPOSE is what the organisation STAND FOR or ASPIRES TO BE.
  • Our CAUSE/S is HOW we WILL CHANGE THE WORLD
  • Our AIMS are the TARGETED INITIATIVES TO GETTING IT DONE!

Will we achieve the ADapT PURPOSE, CAUSES or AIMS in my lifetime – that would be grand, but it’s quite an ambitious target. I must be ready to accept that this purpose is greater than an individual. Hopefully, the community that supports the initiative will remain long after I have left this existence.

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