It would seem that nothing could be simpler — here is the goal, here are the tasks that need to be realized to achieve the required result. We put everything into the plan and go to the performance stage… But everything can go wrong literally from the very beginning. Who will realize the task? What tools and materials may be required? Whether the deadlines for other projects in which the executors are involved will not be moved? Who and how will accept the result? What can and should be obtained in the end, what force majeure can be? And there are a huge number of other questions that arise.
Below, we will try to tell you how to formulate goals and objectives so that it would not be painful, and you would not have to redo everything from scratch.
About goal-setting techniques
To begin with, it is worth noting that there are an incredible number of established and not-so-established project planning and management techniques: Eisenhower matrix, Pareto method, OKR (key performance results), decomposition (decomposing complex tasks into simple ones), graph-analytical method (this can include network graphs) and others. But all of them are more related to planning. What do plan and goals/objectives have in common?
In short, everything. One cannot exist without the other.
But the main thing is not the methodology of planning, but the choice of the right strategy of action. The point is that each of the models is effective in its own niche.
Accordingly, you must first decide on the scale of the work, the level of detail of the plan and the time period it covers.
Depending on the time of coverage, plans (and tasks) can be:
- Short-term or operational (tactical). Usually these are work plans for a day, week, shift, month, or decade.
- Medium-term. This includes current plans or annual planning of the work of the entire enterprise, less often — work for the same period, but for specific units (departments, shops, services).
- Long-term. Long-term planning is already a strategy and prospects of development. Here we are talking about terms of 3-5-10 years and more.
Goals and objectives should be correlated in accordance with these plans.
For example, how should we set objectives for the development of the enterprise for the next 5–10 years?
Since this is strategic planning, the objectives and goals can be general, without much detail. It is not a fact that these goals will be realized 100%. And this will be normal, because the strategy reflects general trends, the general direction of the company’s development. Therefore, the objectives should be in line with the plan. There is no need to plan the increase of household waste removal for the department if you cannot even assume at least the approximate volume of waste for the next 3–5 years.
If you need to formulate a list of tasks for the day, it’s a different matter. High detail and specificity are important here. It is definitely not worth writing impossible items, i.e. those tasks that you even physically do not have time to fulfil for the day. These should be only those goals that can be achieved in a given time period. Examples of tasks for the day: to finish a report, to reassess a particular group of goods, etc.
It is important to realize that individual tasks can be part of something bigger. Then you need to formulate the performance of global projects as part of operational planning with a small time frame.
For example, in the strategic plan the task sounds like «Increase sales turnover by 10% by the end of 3 years». Then in the monthly planning this will be transformed into a list of specific activities: increasing the sales staff by 1 specialist, then their training and adaptation, then building up the customer base. In parallel, production volumes will be increased if they do not cover the sales department’s demand to fulfil the plan. And managers will have a daily task list to call sleeping customers or launch an advertising campaign in a specific advertising network.
SMART planning
Many small projects and teams follow SMART principles (in reality these are typical tasks of any manager reformatted into a business process, more on this below).
The SMART methodology states that objectives should be:
- Specific, i.e. without vague formulations.
- Measurable, the very criteria for assessing measurability will depend on different conditions.
- Achievable, everything is clear here without any explanations.
- Relevant, it is more logical to interpret it as ‘necessary’, i.e. useful.
- Time-limited, i.e. with specific terms or periodicity.
There is even a SMART task builder: verb (action), noun (object to which the action is directed), number (key indicator to be obtained or achieved), time frame (period during which the action should be completed). Optionally, you can briefly describe the purpose directly in the task — tell why the action is being done.
You can find maximum details in our separate material ‘How to work S.M.A.R.T.?’.
SMARTER goals
SMARTER is a methodology that extends the SMART principles with two additional criteria:
- Evaluate.
- Readjust.
It means, when setting tasks and goals, it is necessary to take into account that the result should be evaluated with a certain periodicity, because not all tasks are strictly unidirectional and may have clear criteria of realizability.
In practice, the methodology does not differ much from a simple SMART approach.
Other goal-setting techniques
As mentioned above, there are many methods of task formulation used in different projects. For example:
- PACT — for setting objectives with a link to the goal, actions, their duration and with an emphasis on the fact that objectives can be tracked (changing in order to reassess actions and criteria in time).
- CLEAR — the methodology is effective when working with large teams and for certain types of projects. It states involvement, emotional feedback, time and budget limitations, possibility of evaluation and adjustment as criteria.
- DUMB — setting goals based on moving towards a dream so that it is inspiring, habit driven and friendly.
- HARD — a non-standard methodology for setting and achieving challenging goals at the limits of your capabilities, more suitable for strategic planning.
- WISE — the basic idea is that objectives and goals should be written down, integrated with others and expanded.
- FAST — objectives should be transparent, ambitious and discussed by the team, eventually they need to be specified.
- OKRs — objective tasks with the definition of key indicators and results.
- KPIs — the objectives and goals must necessarily use specific numerical metrics that relate to the process.
Own methodology
No one forbids you to formulate objectives and goals according to your own unique methodology. Whatever you call it, whatever principles you prioritise, the main thing is that the methodology should not contradict common sense and current management theory.
And herein lies the main secret.
What’s the bottom line, so how to formulate the right objectives?
If you have a quick look at the principles of all of these methods, you will find that they coincide in many aspects. It’s just that the pitfalls that are not immediately apparent begin to appear as you delve deeper into the theory of a particular methodology.
And in reality they all describe the same thing, but in different words.
Management theory assigns the following tasks to managers:
- Planning work.
- Formulating and setting tasks.
- Communicating them to subordinates (with the selection of the performer or performers).
- Providing them with the necessary materials and resources (including knowledge, if necessary).
- Motivation.
- Monitoring.
- Analysing to improve performance.
Notice how they echo what is mentioned in all the identified methodologies. Many of these functions are simply included in the task formulation. The only functions that are excluded are: planning (because this is the function of the person who comes up with the task) and selecting subordinates and communicating the task to them.
In the SMART approach, when setting a task, the managers immediately specify what they want from the subordinates, when and with what indicators (for easy control and analysis).
You can add anything from yourself:
- Priority of the task or goal.
- Creativity (the degree of freedom of the performer).
- Involvement.
- And other things.
Additional criteria will depend only on the peculiarities of your activity (its subject part) and the existing mindset in the team (here the behavioural patterns of managers, their professionalism and emotional patterns of subordinates are mixed).
So, for a task to be done the way you want it to be done, you need to make it as concrete as possible. You need to turn it from a dream into a real practical model: deadlines, key indicators, goals, etc. You can even visualise it and say to your subordinate: ‘I want it like this’.
And to make sure that nothing gets lost in the process of performance if there are many people involved in the work, you need to set the right control points and check the result in dynamics — as it appears. And that’s where Projecto can help you.
