Strategy

Goal Mapping

A four-round exercise that turns a room of individual wishes into a short, ranked list of shared goals.

What it is

Four rounds: each person silently writes 'We want to ___' goals, the group clusters matching goals into 3-7 themes, each cluster gets one overarching 'We want to ___' statement, and the group ranks the results down to 3-5 priorities. Ten minutes a round.

Reach for it when

• Stakeholders who have never explicitly agreed on what success looks like
• A project kickoff where everyone assumes the same goals without ever naming them
• Goals that have quietly drifted and need realigning

Running it

1. Round 1 (10 min): each person silently writes 3-5 goals, one per sticky note, completing 'We want to ___,' then reads them aloud without debate.
2. Round 2 (10 min): as a group, cluster matching notes into 3-7 thematic groups.
3. Round 3 (10 min): write one overarching 'We want to ___' statement per cluster.
4. Round 4 (10 min): rank the overarching goals by discussion or dot-voting down to 3-5 priorities.