A clear and concise vision acts as a beacon, guiding every strategic decision and technological adoption within your organisation. It sets the stage for innovation and alignment, ensuring that every step taken is a stride towards a future where your digital capabilities not only meet but exceed market demands and customer expectations.

Whilst not every Digital Leader can go on to create hugely transformative and market leading innovations, we must create and clearly articulate a vision of “What Great Looks Like” and set commitments towards that objective.

To help digital leaders create this clarity for themselves and their teams, UNRVLD has developed a highly intuitive Digital Success Framework we call The KPI Tree.

The KPI Tree: Cascading Excellence from Vision to Execution

True digital leadership is not only about setting ambitious goals but also ensuring these goals align to organisational objectives and permeate every layer of the organisation.

To achieve this, use the KPI Tree as a simple framework, designed to align and cascade strategic goals from the organisational apex right down to transactional operations at the digital product level. This approach ensures that every project, task and initiative can be directly linked to broader business objectives, enhancing both alignment and accountability across the board.

‍The KPI Tree

The KPI Tree is a structured model that starts with broad organisational goals and breaks them down into operational and transactional objectives. This method helps ensure that every action contributes to the overarching goals of the company, providing a clear line of sight from individual contributions to corporate achievements.

• Organisational Goals: These are high-level objectives, typically set by the executive team that define the direction and aspirations of the entire organisation. Examples might include increasing overall market share, increasing brand recognition, or driving digitising operations.
• Strategic Goals: Derived from the organisational goals, these are more specific and may vary by department but still support the overall direction. For example, the marketing department might aim to increase customer digital engagement by 40% year-over-year.
• Operational Goals: These goals translate strategic objectives into actionable plans for specific teams. In a digital context, this could involve introducing new self-serve features or a fully-fledged customer portal.
• Transactional Goals: At the ground level, these goals are highly specific and measurable, directly tied to daily activities. For the website, this could mean improving the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment rates or optimising a landing page to improve conversion rates by 5%.

How the KPI Tree Creates Value

• Alignment: Ensures every level of the organisation is working towards common goals.
• Visibility: Provides a clear understanding of how individual and team activities contribute to strategic objectives. ‍
• Accountability: Establishes measurable indicators of success at each level, making it easier to track progress and make informed adjustments. ‍
• Agility: Enhances the organisation’s ability to respond to changes by aligning operational adjustments with strategic goals.

Implementing the KPI Tree

Implementing the KPI Tree involves several key steps:

• Defining and Communicating Clear Goals: Starting with the organisational goals, each level of the hierarchy must understand and commit to the objectives relevant to their role.
• Regular Monitoring and Reporting: Continuous tracking of KPIs allows for real-time adjustments and ensures goals are being met effectively.
• Feedback Loops: Encouraging feedback from all levels of the organisation to refine goals and strategies, ensuring the KPI Tree evolves within the business.

The KPI Tree at UNRVLD isn’t just a tool; it’s a fundamental part of our strategy execution, ensuring that our clients’ high-level visions transform into tangible results and meaningful business outcomes.  

By clearly linking every task to a strategic objective, we empower teams to contribute directly to the success and growth of the organisations we work with.  

Download our KPI Tree Template.

How strong is your current Digital Vision and Strategy?

Take our 5 minute Digital Vision & Strategy Self-Assessment and receive your own sample KPI Tree template.

Sign Up Below for alerts to the forthcoming releases in the series, plus supporting resources and exclusive associated events.

Next article

Part 2: Experience your Experience>