Process-Based Goals vs Outcome-Based Goals for Facility Managers

Process-Based Goals vs Outcome-Based Goals for Facility Managers

01/24/2024

In: Blog Lifecycle Management

Bullseye under magnifying glass at the top of leveled shelves.

The month of January is often the time when we reflect on the previous year and set new goals for the upcoming year. Goals are a tool that can help us to accomplish what we want to achieve. As a facility manager, you probably have a lot of goals. For instance, you could set a SMART goal to perform a condition assessment on your building portfolio this year or maybe you are hoping to replace all of your portfolio’s compromised and failing roofs. Those are both worthwhile goals, but so large that they can seem overwhelming for any one person or department. So, let’s take a moment and break those goals down into a more manageable process.

Outcome vs Process Goals

Your goal for the new year may be to replace every failing roof in your building portfolio. However, you may not have the capital spend needed to achieve such a feat. Maybe this leads you to instead replace the most severe roofs in your triage for the current year and work on repairing those that are in poor condition but not yet failed. While doing so, perhaps you then decide to create a 5-year, 10-year and even 20-year plan for eventually replacing all the failed roofs in your portfolio. Thus, achieving your actual bigger goal but in a more incremental, systematic way. This is the difference between setting an outcome goal versus a process goal.

Outcome goals can be overwhelming and potentially set you up for failure. Breaking it down into smaller, process-based goals can help you achieve milestones toward your actual bigger outcome. This allows you to pivot as things outside of your control affect your outcome goal, such as budgets and project spend. Process goals are small achievements that give you a clear direction and amount to many small successes that lead to the overall desired outcome.

Setting Process Goals

A process goal is much more nuanced and methodical, while an outcome-based goal focuses on the big shiny prize at the end. Process goals allow us to realistically chip away at the larger outcome goal in a way that is systematic and allows you to gain clarity so that you can then take the appropriate actions.

Three things to consider when setting your process goals:

 

  1. Are you the one in control? If you can directly impact it with your behavior or decision-making, then move ahead.
  1. Is the goal sustainable? Consistency is key with process goals. Remember you’re trying to hit various milestones to systematically achieve a larger, outcome goal.
  1. Does it align with your outcome goal? Your process goals should align with your larger objective and provide incremental, actionable steps forward.

 

A Programmatic Approach to Asset Management

A programmatic approach to asset management and process-based goals goes hand-in-hand. This approach helps facility managers to prioritize their projects and capital spend, maximizing your buildings’ useful service life with a specific plan of action that focuses on extending the life of your assets. Using a triage score that takes into consideration your asset conditions, mission dependency and criticality, you can create process goals for your repair and capital replacement projects.

Prioritizing specific issues and using a process goal approach provides a level of control that allows you to address one issue at a time and to choose when and which projects get completed becomes a strategic milestone toward your outcome-based goal. The most important or critical tasks can be accomplished first and make the best long-term use of your resources. This process approach positively impacts the financial health of your portfolio by reducing the overall spend on facility assets through extending life cycles and reducing deferred maintenance and capital backlogs.

To get started on your setting your process goals for 2024, read about the 7 elements needed to develop a comprehensive facility asset management plan and then download our free white paper to learn more about how to extend the life of your facility assets and optimize your organization’s investment.

 

Contact Us Today!

Technical Assurance can help you take a simplified, programmatic approach to building envelope asset management. Contact us today for a consultation and assure that your investment lasts well into the future.

 

SOURCES

https://unmistakablecreative.com/outcome-based-goals/
https://www.lifehack.org/901864/process-goal-outcome-goal