The second view zooms in on the first beat, Agenda, and shows how a vague want becomes a precise aim. The framework names six successively more specific concepts. The funnel shape (broader at the top, narrower at the bottom) is not decorative. It is the point.
The planning funnel, from actor to target
Six layers, each narrower than the one above, worked through the steering-committee example. Play it to watch a vague want narrow to the person who has to be moved.
- Actorthe person or group actingA particular executive, not "the company"
- Agendatheir long-term ambitionTo be the person who gets to choose what gets done
- Interestwhat they care about right nowHave more influence
- Objectivea concrete aim to pursueWin the seat on the steering committee
- Goalthe specific result they wantBe one of the seven named members in the charter when it is published next month
- Targetwho or what they must moveThe person who grants the seat
The six layers
An actor is a person or group capable of decisions. This sounds trivial but isn't; many situations look intractable until you correctly identify who the actor actually is. A "company" rarely makes decisions; a particular executive does, sometimes in concert with others, sometimes alone. A "movement" doesn't act; a coalition of named participants does. Name the actor correctly and the rest of the funnel becomes possible.
An agenda is the actor's long-running ambition: the thing they would still want if everything else changed. It is rarely stated openly and is often misidentified by observers. An executive's agenda is rarely "to do my job well." It is more likely something like "to be the person who gets to choose what gets done." Get the agenda wrong and every prediction you make about the actor will drift.
An interest is what an agenda produces at the moment. Interests are situational and changeable. Last quarter's interest may not be this quarter's. An interest is also lower-stakes than an agenda: losing an interest is recoverable; threatening an agenda is not. This distinction explains why some situations escalate suddenly: someone perceives an attack on an agenda when only an interest was at issue, or vice versa.
An objective is a concrete aim that serves the interest. It is the first thing on the funnel that can be written down without ambiguity. "Have more influence" is not an objective. "Win the seat on the steering committee" is. The transition from interest to objective is often where actors lose their way: they have feelings about what they want without ever forcing themselves to formulate it concretely.
A goal is the specific result that, if achieved, satisfies the objective. Where an objective can be described, a goal can be measured. "Get the seat on the steering committee" is the objective; "be one of the seven named members in the charter when it is published next month" is the goal.
A target is the thing or person the actor must move to achieve the goal. The seat is granted by someone; that someone is the target. Targets are often the part of the situation an actor avoids naming clearly, because acknowledging a target forces a confrontation with the political reality of the goal. Skipping target identification is one of the most common failure modes the framework exposes.
Why the funnel runs one direction
The funnel works only in one direction. You cannot work backward from a target to an agenda; you cannot pick a goal and reverse-engineer the interest. The agenda is the prior; everything below it is downstream. When an actor's behavior surprises you, the explanation almost always lies above the level of behavior you're observing: at the objective, interest, or agenda layer.
The funnel is, in other words, a tool for asking the right question: what level am I getting wrong? A misread of someone's agenda will produce wrong predictions about every objective and goal they pursue; a misread of their objective produces wrong predictions only about the current move. Distinguishing the two saves enormous time.