Align Your Goals and Initiatives Without Guesswork

Align Your Goals and Initiatives Without Guesswork

SMB leaders: According to PMI, initiatives with engaged executive sponsors are 40% more likely to succeed.

Your presence can have a huge impact and of course, so does prioritizing the initiatives that impact your goals the most. If you have a great business but are starting to see some of these signs, you might have some misalignment.

• Teams are working hard but results are slow to come
• There is an aspect of “firefighting” in daily work
• Initiatives are often delayed or achieve “less than” outcomes
• Few people can articulate the company strategy or explain how their work impacts it

If this sounds familiar, here’s an excellent, simple, and no-cost tool you can use to assess things.

Enter MODA: Multi-Objective Decision Analysis

Sounds fancy, right? It’s just a simple way to compare competing initiatives based on how well they support your goals—and it’s done with just a basic spreadsheet. It does require strategic planning to be complete or in progress, because MODA measures initiatives against stated goals. But once you’re ready, this tool is a straightforward way to quickly spot misalignment and surface top priorities.

Here’s what the basic version looks like:

This version treats all factors as equal. It can be filled out individually then compared in a group setting or used collaboratively in a meeting format. You’ll likely find patterns that highlight which projects are both meaningful and aligned—and which ones are not.

Ready for a more nuanced view?

Try a Weighted MODA

The same structure can be used, but by assigning a weight to each factor, you can better reflect your business reality.

For example, if you’re in a season where “Speed to Market” is more important than “Internal Preference,” your scores can reflect that. This helps break decision ties and gives a more realistic weighting to initiatives that feel equally important.

As a side benefit, this kind of evaluation process boosts engagement. When people understand the "why" behind your priorities:

• They’re more likely to support and own the work
• They can better explain it to their teams and partners
• That leads to higher job satisfaction and longer retention

Coming Next

• How to prioritize initiatives with a simple scoring matrix
• When and how to say no to projects that sound good but distract your team
• How to explain strategic priorities in a way that gets buy-in