Patent Application
20060167740
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer implemented system for processing business objectives, and more specifically, the present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for defining, linking, and tracking organizational wide objectives.
2. Background Art
In order to track the success or failure of an organization, objectives are typically defined by the organization for some time period. For instance, an objective for a business might be $100 million in sales of a particular product for the upcoming year. Sales performance can then be compared to the objective to measure success or failure. Such objectives are defined based on goals required to implement a desired strategy for the organization.
Objectives are typically broken down into finer and finer detail down through the organization. For example, product sales for the aforementioned business may be organized by region, district, territory and individual salesperson. Thus, the business may have four regions, each having a sales objective of $25 million. One of those regions may have five districts, each with an objective of $5 million in sales. Each district in a given region may be responsible for $1 million, with territories having objectives of $200,000. Finally, individual sales people in the territories may have goals of $100,000 each.
Unfortunately, the impact of a lower level objective on one higher up in the organization is not automatically evident, and the impact is often detected too late to properly address the problem. Instead, each level in an organization typically evaluates its own progress and success based on external data and human effort. For instance, in the above example, a region will determine whether it is meeting its objectives by collecting and adding sales performance figures from each of its districts. If one of the districts is not meeting its objectives, additional human effort is typically required to determine which territory or territories are contributing to the failure, and which sales people within a given territory are failing to meet their objectives.
The ability to analyze objectives across an entire organization in an automated fashion would allow management at different levels to study and understand the performance of the organization. Unfortunately, there currently exists no automated mechanism that supports organization-wide objectives, the linking of objectives, and the impact or contribution a lower level objective has on a higher level objective.
In general, the present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product that allows an organization's objectives to be entered and tracked for any number of organizational levels. The invention further allows for the linking of objectives both through a reporting hierarchy, as well as across matrixed teams, in which the linkages define dependencies and contributions one objective makes on another.
In a first aspect, the invention provides a computerized system for processing objectives, comprising: an objective creation system for defining new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; an objective linking system for linking a set of source objectives to a destination objective; and an objective analysis system for comparing a current actual value with a current target value for a selected objective.
In a second aspect, the invention provides a program product stored on a computer readable medium for processing objectives, comprising: program code configured for defining new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; program code configured for linking a set of source objectives to a destination objective; and program code configured for comparing a current actual value with a current target value for a selected objective.
In a third aspect, the invention provides a computerized method for processing objectives, comprising: defining new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; linking a set of source objectives to a destination objective; and comparing a current actual value with a current target value for a selected objective.
In a fourth aspect, the invention provides a method for deploying an application for processing objectives, comprising: providing a computer infrastructure being operable to: define new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; link a set of source objectives to a destination objective; and compare a current actual value with a current target value for a selected objective.
In a fifth aspect, the invention provides computer software embodied in a propagated signal for processing objectives, the computer software comprising instructions to cause a computer system to perform the following functions: defining new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; linking a set of source objectives to a destination objective; and comparing a current actual value with a current target value for a selected objective.
These and other features of this invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description of the various aspects of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
Referring now to the figures,
I/O 14 may comprise any system for exchanging information to and from external devices/resources (not shown). External devices/resources may comprise any known type of external device, including: storage, a display, handheld device, keyboard, mouse, voice recognition system, speech output system, printer, facsimile, pager, speakers etc.
Bus 32 provides a communication link between each of the components in computer system 10, and likewise may comprise any known type of transmission link, including electrical, optical, wireless, etc. In addition, although not shown, additional components, such as cache memory, communication systems, system software, etc., may be incorporated into computer system 10.
Shown in memory 16 is objective processing system 30, which includes a user interface 18, an objective creation system 20, an objective linking system 22, and an objective analysis system 24. An objective may be generally defined as any type of quantifiable goal or metric set by an organization. Common examples may include sales figures, production, reported errors, product failures, inventory, etc. User interface 18 allows a user 26 to access the features of objective processing system 30 as described in further detail below.
In general, objective creation system 20 provides a mechanism through which user 26 can define an objective for a particular organizational level. For instance, an objective of $100 million in annual sales may be set for a regional unit of an organization. Objective linking system 22 is utilized to link objectives from different levels in the organization. For instance, the above-mentioned regional unit may be divided into several territories, each having a defined objective that makes up a part of the $100 million regional sales objective. Objective analysis system 24 allows user 26 to view an analysis of current performance data 28 relative to one or more defined objectives. For instance, at a given point through the year, the current actual value of regional sales may total $65 million, which may be ahead of, behind, or on target relative to the defined objective. Accordingly, performance data 28 is made up of “current actual values” 29 captured or calculated by objective processing system 30.
Once a set of objectives are created, two or more of the objectives can be linked together by user 26. Objectives are either leaf nodes or aggregates. Leaf node objectives get their performance data 28 from direct user input or an external data source. Aggregate objectives get their performance data 28 by aggregating performance data 28 of lower level objectives using a defined formula.
Contribution Definition System window 48 allows the user to select a contribution formula that defines how the source objectives impacts the destination objective. The mathematical contribution of a source objective on a destination objective is determined by selecting or defining such a contribution formula. In the example of
Referring now to
The objective analysis system 24 stores and computes information for each of the defined objectives, including: (1) a current actual value, which is the most recent measurement of performance or progress for an objective, either individually captured or computed through aggregation; (2) current target, which as described above is the defined target value of the objective prorated by the schedule 41 for the current point in time; (3) current status, which is an indicator of how successfully the objective is being reached, based on the current actual value, the current target, and the objective's defined threshold; (4) trend, which is an indicator of how the execution of the objective has changed over time; (5) deviation, which is the delta of the current actual value to the current target; and (6) % change, which is the percent change of the current deviation to a previously calculated deviation.
As shown in the example of
Obviously, the interfaces shown in
It should be appreciated that the teachings of the present invention could be offered as a business method on a subscription or fee basis. For example, computer system 10 could be created, maintained, supported, and/or deployed by a service provider that offers the functions described herein for customers. That is, a service provider could be used to process organizational objectives over a network. It should also be understood that the present invention can be realized in hardware, software, a propagated signal, or any combination thereof. Any kind of computer/server system(s)—or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein—is suited. A typical combination of hardware and software could be a general purpose computer system with a computer program that, when loaded and executed, carries out the respective methods described herein. Alternatively, a specific use computer, containing specialized hardware for carrying out one or more of the functional tasks of the invention, could be utilized. The present invention can also be embedded in a computer program product or a propagated signal, which comprises all the respective features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein, and which—when loaded in a computer system—is able to carry out these methods. Computer program, propagated signal, software program, program, or software, in the present context mean any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly or after either or both of the following: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation; and/or (b) reproduction in a different material form.
The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of this invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations are possible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to a person skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of this invention as defined by the accompanying claims.
