Because I continually see really good people struggling to realize their personal goals...
Because I continually encounter dedicated entrepreneurs struggling to achieve their business objectives...
Let me suggest three simple steps to getting on the path to success:
STEP ONE: Be SPECIFIC about the details of your plan. I can not underscore how much confusion and outright failure is the simple by-product of having fuzzy objectives whose very existence lies undocumented in any form.
STEP TWO: Clearly COMMUNICATE roles, expected deliverables, key milestones and timelines. So often a plan is dependent upon the actions of others, yet the very same constituency is left to guess or interpret what is expected of them.
STEP THREE: Hope is not a strategy. Therefore, you have to regularly and proactively COORDINATE with stakeholders on the status of their deliverables and develop contingency plans when they are missed.
A final disclaimer. There is a tendency to cast even the most simple of goals into the bucket of all or none. In truth, the process of 'documenting' the specifics need not be monolithic.
It can be a page or two, a checklist or a wiki or even a continually evolving PowerPoint presentation.
For that matter, coordination can result from scheduling regular demos or aligning on specific release themes and/or use cases. There is no one right answer.
In fact, while process matters it is ultimately subordinate to prioritization. When something is a priority, process follows. When it is not, no amount of process will yield the desired results.
Necessity is truly the mother of invention in this regard.
Think about that the next time you are staring at a fork in the road.