Goal Hierarchy

Revision as of 21:29, 10 February 2021

When managing projects, it is important that they have a specific direction to be successful. The direction of the project can be found by defining the purpose. If there is no purpose, there is no reason to do the project. When breaking down the purpose in smaller parts the scope can be defined. The scope should only include the processes that will help you ensuring that the project will be a success. It requires a structed managing, which involves defining and controlling what should be and what should not be part of the project. ^[1] One way to help you defining the scope of your project is to apply the Goal Hierarchy method.

The Goal Hierarchy is a goal-oriented iterative method that can be used to define the scope of your project. This by setting common goals that can be brought up to date throughout the project as knowledge expands. ^[2] The goals are broken down in different levels of details by asking the questions ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. You ask yourself ‘why are we doing this?’ to make sure the goals make sense and ‘how are we doing this?’ to make the goals specific. The method consists of a hierarchy with a main goal on top followed by sub-goals, project-goals, deliveries, and success criteria. ^[3]

This article will investigate the Goal Hierarchy and its purpose and how it can be applied to make your project management‏ more specific and goal-oriented. The application of the method will be followed by its limitations with a critical reflection of the method and its application. Hence the reader will be aware of what the method can and cannot do and when it will be beneficial to use after reading this article.

Context

Within project management one can use tools and concepts within four different perspectives: Purpose, People, Complexity and Uncertainty. This article focusses on the purpose, specifically on how to define the scope by using the method Goal Hierarchy.

Description and Purpose

The Goal Hierarchy is a goal-oriented iterative method to help project managers defining the scope of their project. The method consists of goals that are broken down in different levels of details by asking the questions ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. The question ‘why?’ is about making sure that all the project goals are relevant. This forces the project manager to adjust the purpose as the project knowledge expands along the way. The other question ‘how?’ is about looking down in the hierarchy and investigating what to do to reach the goals by defining specific outputs. Outputs that details the plan by stating specifically what should be delivered to reach the goals. Specifically, the hierarchy consist of a main goal, sub-goals, project-goals, deliveries, and success criteria. The success criteria are added to be able to measure whether the project goals have been achieved. ^[4]

Figure 1: Shows the Goal Hierarchy inspired by figure 3.8 (Attrup and Olsson) ^[5] and figure 17 (Geraldi, Thesen, Oehmen and Stringl) ^[6]

Application

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Limitations

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Annotated Bibliography

Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpGPMBKP02/guide-project-management/guide-project-management

References

1. ↑ Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition) - 5. Project Scope Management, page 129. Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt011DX4T1/guide-project-management/project-scope-management
2. ↑ Attrup, M. L. and Olsson, J.R. , Power i projekter og portefølje, page 100, DJØF Publishing (2008), ISBN: 978-87-574-1665-7
3. ↑ Geraldi, J., Thuesen, C., Oehmen, J., & Stingl, V. (2017). How to DO Projects? A Nordic Flavour to Managing Projects, page 113. Dansk Standard. DS Handbook Vol. 185
4. ↑ Geraldi, J., Thuesen, C., Oehmen, J., & Stingl, V. (2017). How to DO Projects? A Nordic Flavour to Managing Projects, page 113. Dansk Standard. DS Handbook Vol. 185
5. ↑ Attrup, M. L. and Olsson, J.R. , Power i projekter og portefølje, figure 3.8, DJØF Publishing (2008), ISBN: 978-87-574-1665-7
6. ↑ Geraldi, J., Thuesen, C., Oehmen, J., & Stingl, V. (2017). How to DO Projects? A Nordic Flavour to Managing Projects, figure 17. Dansk Standard. DS Handbook Vol. 185