We all know that nothing runs without a plan, and a plan cannot run without having its objectives set.
That applies to any kind of plan, whether we're talking firm or personal finances, university degrees or Ngo programs, website promotion or weight loss.
Setting objectives and milestones is of crucial point for any planning action and is the core of its success, or failure.
Knowing how to set objectives is not exactly rocket science in terms of complexity, but any strategist should know the basic rules of how to formulate and propose objectives. We will see in this article why objectives play such a major role within a company's planning and strategic activities, how they influence all firm processes, and we will reveal some guidelines of setting objectives.
The point of Setting Objectives
One might wonder why we need to construct objectives in the first place, why not let the firm or a definite action just run smoothly into the time to come and see where it gets. That would be the case only if we surely do not care whether the action in seminar will be prosperous or not: but then, to use a beloved saying, "if something deserves to be performed, then it deserves to be performed well". In other words, if we don't care for the results, we should not amble with the action at all.
Setting objectives before taking any action is the only right thing to do, for any reasons:
- it gives a target to aim to, therefore all actions and efforts will be focused on attaining the objective instead of being inefficiently used;
- gives participants a sense of direction, a behold of where they're going to;
- motivates the leaders and their teams, since it is quite the custom of establishing some sort of repaymen once the team successfully completed a project;
- offers the withhold in evaluating the success of an action or project.
The 5 Rules of Setting Objectives: Be Smart!
I am sure most managers and leaders know what Smart stands for, well, at least when it comes of establishing objectives. However, I have seen some of them who cannot fully justify the five characteristics of a good-established objective - things are somehow blurry and confused in their minds. Since they can't justify in details what Smart objectives surely are, it is highly doubtful that they will all the time be able to formulate such objectives.
It is still unclear from where the obscuring comes: perhaps there are too many sources of information, each of them with a slightly different arrival upon what a Smart objective surely is; or perhaps most habitancy only briefly "heard" about it and they never get to reach the substance behind the packaging.
Either way, let us try to locate the meaning of the Smart acronym and see how we can formulate sufficient objectives.
Smart illustrates the 5 characteristics of an sufficient objective; it stands for Specific - Measurable - Attainable - Relevant - Timely.
1. Be Specific!
When it comes of firm planning, "specific" illustrates a situation that is surely identified and understood. It is usually connected to some mathematical determinant that imprints a definite character to a given action: most coarse determinants are numbers, ratios and fractions, percentages, frequencies. In this case, being "specific" means being "precise".
Example: when you tell your team "I need this article in any copies", you did not furnish the team with a definite instruction. It is unclear what the determinant "several" means: for some it can be three, for some can be a hundred. A much better instruction would sound like "I need this article in 5 copies" - your team will know exactly what you expect and will have less chances to fail in delivering the desired result.
2. Be Measurable!
When we say that an objective, a goal, must be measurable, we mean there is a stringent need to have the possibility to measure, to track the action(s) connected with the given objective.
We must set up a clear system or construct clear procedures of how the actions will be monitored, measured and recorded. If an objective and the actions pertaining to it cannot be quantified, it is most likely that the objective is wrongly formulated and we should think it.
Example: "our firm must grow" is an obscure, non-measurable objective. What exactly should we measure in order to find out if the objective was met? But if we turn it to "our firm must grow in sales volume with 20%", we've got one measurable objective: the measure being the percentage sales rise from gift occasion to the given occasion in the future. We can imagine this very easy, based on the recorded sales figures.
3. Be Attainable!
Some use the term "achievable" instead of "attainable", which you will see it is merely a synonym and we should not get stuck in analyzing which one is correct. Both are.
It is understood that each leader will want his firm / unit to give superior performances; this is the spirit of competition and such reasoning is much needed. However, when setting objectives, one should deeply analyze first the factors determining the success or failure of these objectives. Think of your team, of your capacities, of motivation: are they sufficient in order for the objectives to be met? Do you have the means and capabilities to achieve them?
Think it through and be honest and realistic to yourself: are you surely capable of attaining the goals you've set or are you most likely headed to disappointment? all the time set objectives that have a fair chance to be met: of course, they don't need to be "easily" attained, you're entitled to set difficult ones as long as they're realistic and not futile.
Example: you own a newborn movers firm and you set the objective of "becoming no. 1 movers within the state". The qoute is you only have 3 trucks available, while all your competitors have 10 and up. Your goal is not attainable; try instead a more realistic one, such as "reaching the Top 5 fastest growing movers firm in the state".
4. Be Relevant!
This opinion is a microscopic more difficult to be perceived in its full meaning; therefore we will start explaining it by using an example in the first place.
Imagine yourself going to the It division and telling them they need to growth the behalf to income ratio by 5%. They will probably look at you in astonishment and mumble something undistinguished about managers and the way they mess up with people's minds.
Can you tell what is wrong with the objective above? Of course! The It division has no idea what you were talking about and there's nothing they can do about it - their job is to construct and maintain your computerized infrastructure, not to understand your economic speech. What you can do it setting an objective that the It division can have an impact upon, and which will finally lead to the growth you wanted in the first place. What about request them to sacrifice expenditures for hardware and software by 10% monthly and be more cautious with the consumables within their division by not exceeding the allocated budget? They will surely understand what they need to do because the objective is relevant for their group.
Therefore, the quality of an objective to be "relevant" refers to setting appropriate objectives for a given personel or team: you need to think if they can truly do something about it or is it irrelevant for the job they perform.
5. Be Timely!
No much to discuss about this aspect, since it is probably the easiest to be understood and applied.
Any usable and performable objective must have a clear timeframe of when it should start and/or when it should end. Without having a timeframe specified, it is approximately impossible to say if the objective is met or not.
For example, if you just say "we need to raise behalf by 500000 units", you will never be able to tell if the objective was achieved or not, one can all the time say "well, we'll do it next year". Instead, if you say "we need to raise behalf by 500000 units within 6 months from now", whatever can see in 6 months if the goal was attained or not. Without a clear, clear timeframe, no objective is any good.
No comments:
Post a Comment