Explanation:
All organizational Goals fall in the below three categories:
Strategic Goal is something important that the organization would like to achieve. This goal is so big and far away, with many uncertainties along the journey that the organization must use empiricism. Because the Strategic Goal is aspirational and the path to it is uncertain, the organization needs a series of practical targets, like Intermediate Goals, achievements of which will indicate that the organization is on the path to its Strategic Goal. The path to the Intermediate Goal is often still somewhat uncertain, but not completely unknown.
Immediate tactical Goals, critical known near-term tactical objectives toward which a team or group of teams will work help toward Intermediate Goals.
Remember the goals defined in the EBM guide are at an organizational level. Consider organizations where not all teams are using Scrum. Some parts may be using other agile methods (including continuous flow, just-in-time methods that don't have a Sprint-like iteration), while others may be using plan-driven methodologies. Regardless of which methodology is used, an organization using EBM would still have strategic, intermediate or immediate actionable goals driving what different teams are working toward.
Now if you consider an organization with a portfolio of products, If Scrum is being used, each team would have its own current Product Goal and each team working on the product would have a Sprint Goal, but those would all be more specific than the organizational goals.
One could link the organizational’s goals to a Scrum Team's goals in the context of a particular team. Each Scrum Team should ensure that their Product Goal and Sprint Goal are in support of the organization's Strategic Goal, Intermediate Goal, and Immediate Tactical Goal.
Here is a popular example describing the strategic, intermediate and tactical goals.
Consider the case of the response to an infectious disease:
The Strategic Goal is to eradicate the effects of the disease. This would be measured by the number of people who fall ill and suffer significant illness. Measurement is important; in this example, the goal is focused on the effects of the disease, and not on the means for achieving the desired impact. For example, the goal is not to vaccinate a certain percentage of the population against the disease; that may be an activity necessary to achieving the Strategic Goal, but it is not the Strategic Goal.
An example of an Intermediate Goal is the successful completion of a trial of a vaccine against the disease. This is still ambitious and measurable, and achieving it may require the completion of many different activities, but it is seen as a necessary step on the path to achieving the Strategic Goal. Examples of immediate tactical goals may include activities like isolating symptoms, evaluating a therapy, sequencing the DNA of a virus or bacterium, and so forth.
The Strategic Goal is usually focused on achieving a highly desirable but unrealized outcome for a specific group of people that results in improved happiness, safety, security, or well-being of the recipients of some product or service.
