Scale B.O.S.S. Knowledge Base

One-Year and Five-Year Goals in Scale B.O.S.S.

A detailed guide to Strategic Goals, including how one-year and five-year goals work, how quarterly review works, how KPI linkage works, and how this page fits into the Execution stage of the platform.

What this guide covers
This article explains the Strategic Goals section of Strategy in Scale B.O.S.S. It covers one-year and five-year goals, quarterly review requirements, KPI linkage, projections, note-taking, and how strategic goals connect to the broader execution rhythm.

What this page is for

Strategic Goals is the direction-setting layer of the Strategy section. This is where the company defines what it is trying to achieve over the next year and over the next five years, and then keeps those goals visible inside the same operating environment used for cadence, Strategic CFOs, and Key Business Drivers.

This matters because execution needs both a near-term horizon and a long-term horizon. The one-year view gives leadership a practical strategic target for the current operating year. The five-year view gives the company a larger destination to aim toward while making quarterly and annual decisions.

One-year goals define what success should look like over the next year.
Five-year goals define the longer strategic destination the business is building toward.
Quarterly review keeps those goals active and current rather than static.
KPI linkage helps leadership connect a goal to measurable progress when measurement is appropriate.

Why Strategic Goals matter in Execution

In the Execution stage, the business is no longer asking only what is wrong or what should change. It is asking what success looks like and how the organization will stay aligned while moving toward it.

That is the role of Strategic Goals inside Scale B.O.S.S. They give the company a visible strategic target inside the same system where cadence, Strategic CFOs, and KBDs already live.

They create strategic direction that can be revisited every quarter.
They give leadership a place to connect long-term direction to KPI measurement.
They help the organization distinguish between one-year priorities and five-year direction.
They keep strategic progress inside the operating system instead of spreading it across slide decks, notes, and memory.

Simple definition
A strategic goal is a high-level target the organization is intentionally moving toward. In Scale B.O.S.S., the goal becomes part of the regular execution rhythm through quarterly review, KPI linkage, and visibility inside Strategy.

How the Strategic Goals page is organized

Strategic Goals detail view with a linked KPI, projection table, and quarterly review requirement.

The Strategic Goals page is built around two primary working areas. On the left is the goal list and filtering panel. On the right is the active goal detail view.

The left rail shows the current strategic goals available in the selected year and status context.
The tabs at the top of the left rail separate All Goals, One-Year, and Five-Year views.
The year and status filters narrow the visible goal list.
The search bar makes it easier to find an existing goal quickly.
The right panel shows the currently selected goal, including details, quarterly review, KPI linkage, projections, and notes.

What the goal list is doing

The goal list is not just a navigation pane. It is a quick management view. It shows the name of the goal, whether it is a one-year or five-year goal, and the current progress or health status indicators.

This helps leadership see not only what goals exist, but also which ones deserve immediate attention.

One-Year goals vs. Five-Year goals

The Strategic Goals page intentionally separates goals into one-year and five-year horizons because execution needs both.

Goal horizon	What it is for	Best use
One-Year Goal	The strategic target for the next operating year.	Use for the major outcomes the company wants to reach over the next year.
Five-Year Goal	The long-term strategic destination.	Use for the larger future state the company is trying to build toward.

The one-year goal is the strategic horizon leadership should care about most in active execution. It is close enough to shape priorities now. The five-year goal matters because it keeps the business from becoming too short-sighted. It gives the organization a larger destination so the annual direction stays pointed toward something meaningful.

How to think about the difference

A one-year goal answers: what must we achieve this year to materially move the business forward?
A five-year goal answers: what kind of business are we deliberately trying to build over the longer horizon?
A one-year goal should feel operationally relevant now.
A five-year goal should feel directionally meaningful but not so vague that it becomes decorative.

Creating a Strategic Goal

Create Strategic Goal flow with One-Year and Five-Year selection.

Creating a strategic goal is intentionally simple at the start. The system asks leadership to define the goal name, select whether it is a One-Year or Five-Year goal, and describe what the goal aims to achieve.

Goal name: the strategic title of the goal.
Horizon type: One-Year or Five-Year.
Description: a concise explanation of what the goal is meant to accomplish.
Create Goal: creates the goal record and brings it into the strategic review rhythm.

What a strong goal name looks like

A strong strategic goal name reads like a real destination, not like a vague aspiration or a to-do item.

Good: Improve Profitability
Good: Increase Retention
Good: Build a Predictable Pipeline
Weak: Work on Marketing
Weak: Fix Some Stuff
Weak: Team Goals

What a strong goal description looks like

A strong description explains what leadership is really trying to accomplish and why it matters. It should be strategic, specific enough to be understood, and useful later during review.

A good description explains the intended business effect.
It should not be so vague that another leader would interpret it differently.
It should not be so tactical that it becomes a task list instead of a strategic goal.

Best practice
Write the goal as if a new member of the Strategy Team will open it six months from now and need to understand exactly what the business is trying to achieve.

Reading the goal detail view

Once a goal exists, the right-side detail panel becomes the strategic record for that goal.

The title field identifies the goal.
The horizon badge shows whether it is a One-Year or Five-Year goal.
The status control shows where the goal sits operationally, such as In Progress.
The health/status indicator shows whether the goal is On Track or needs attention.
The description explains the intent of the goal.
The creation date provides historical context.

The goal detail view is where leadership should spend most of its time when reviewing strategy. It is the live working record, not just a title page.

Quarterly Review Required

One of the most important features on this page is the Quarterly Review Required section.

This is what keeps strategic goals from becoming static statements. The software makes it explicit when a goal has not been reviewed for the current quarter and prompts leadership to complete that review.

Quarterly review confirms that the goal is still on track or needs adjustment.
It keeps projections honest.
It forces the Strategy Team to revisit the goal in the same cadence as the quarterly strategy process.
It creates a review discipline instead of relying on leadership memory.

This is one of the strongest parts of the Execution stage. Many companies write annual goals and then rarely look at them again. Scale B.O.S.S. fixes that by making review part of the operating system.

Linked KPI and KPI projections

Strategic Goals can be linked to a KPI. This is how the company connects strategic direction to measurable performance when a clear metric exists.

The Link to KPI area lets the goal connect to a relevant KPI record.
The KPI card underneath shows the linked KPI and its current metric context.
Projection values can be reviewed period by period.
Leadership can compare target values, actual values, and variance where data exists.

This is a major advantage of running strategy inside the platform. A goal no longer has to live as a sentence alone. It can be tied to a measurable operating signal.

What KPI linkage is good for

It helps leadership review strategic progress more objectively.
It makes quarterly review more concrete.
It allows goals to connect to the KPI system already used elsewhere in the business.
It reduces the risk of strategic language that sounds good but is not actually measured.

Goal detail view with no KPI linked.

Not every goal will have a KPI linked immediately. The software makes that visible. That is helpful because it lets leadership distinguish between goals that already have measurable support and goals that are still strategic in language but not yet connected to a KPI.

What good KPI linkage looks like

The KPI is meaningfully connected to the goal, not loosely attached.
The metric helps leadership tell whether the goal is moving in the right direction.
Projection review supports quarterly discussion rather than creating noise.

What weak KPI linkage looks like

The KPI does not really reflect the strategic goal.
The goal claims to be measurable, but the KPI attached is too indirect to be useful.
The KPI field is left disconnected for too long even when a meaningful measurement should exist.

Notes and commentary

Strategic Goals also support notes. This matters because strategy is not just numbers and titles. It is judgment, explanation, context, and commentary over time.

Notes let Strategy Team members add context to the goal record.
They make quarterly review easier because the reasoning and commentary remain attached to the goal.
They help preserve continuity from one quarter to the next.

A good note should explain what changed, what leadership is seeing, why the goal is still on track or not, and what the next implication is. Weak notes tend to be vague affirmations that do not improve future review.

How Strategic Goals connect to the rest of Execution

The Strategic Goals page does not stand alone. It is part of the Strategy execution system.

Connected area	Relationship to goals	Why it matters
QLSM Cadence	Provides the rhythm that keeps goals under review.	Prevents goals from becoming static statements.
Quarterly Strategy Meeting	Creates the quarterly review checkpoint for goals.	Forces leadership to confirm progress and adjust direction.
Strategic CFOs	Translate strategy into owned critical work.	Strategic goals define where the business is going; Strategic CFOs define the critical work that helps get there.
Key Business Drivers	Show the operating levers leadership must watch while pursuing the goal.	Goals define direction; KBDs show the live business drivers that influence that direction.
KPIs	Provide measurable support where applicable.	Make progress more visible and reviewable.

That is the execution logic: the goal sets the destination, the cadence creates the rhythm, the quarterly meeting creates the review moment, KPI linkage supports measurement, and Strategic CFOs help translate the direction into owned work.

What good strategic goal use looks like

Goals are limited to strategic outcomes that actually matter.
One-year and five-year horizons are both used intentionally.
Descriptions are clear enough to survive leadership turnover or time gaps.
Quarterly review is completed consistently.
KPI linkage is used where it genuinely improves visibility.
Notes add meaningful context instead of vague encouragement.

What weak strategic goal use looks like

Goals are written once and then ignored.
Everything is called a goal, including tactical projects that should not live here.
One-year and five-year horizons are used without a real distinction.
Quarterly review is skipped.
KPIs are not linked even when measurable visibility is clearly needed.
Descriptions are too vague to support real strategic review.

Leadership standard
A strategic goal should help the company answer three questions clearly: what are we trying to achieve, how will we know whether we are moving toward it, and how often are we forcing ourselves to review that honestly?

Bottom line

Strategic Goals in Scale B.O.S.S. are the short-term and long-term directional layer of execution. They give the organization a one-year and five-year planning structure inside the same operating environment used for cadence, Strategic CFOs, and Key Business Drivers.

Used well, this page keeps strategic direction visible, measurable, and reviewable. That is what makes it so important inside the Execution stage.

Strategic Goals: One-Year and Five-Year Planning in Scale B.O.S.S.