What makes a good goal? Most of us have heard of "SMART goals" (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound), but in my experience, SMART is only the tip of the iceberg. OKRs, to their benefit, seek to encourage some positive goal-setting habits, but ultimately they are still goals.
The only thing I'd add (it's sort of already in there, but not explicitly) is that good goals are defined from the point of view of the people who will be expected to achieve them, whereas bad goals are written from the perspective of the people who will be reviewing (*not* writing) the performance reviews.
Example: I used to work at a place that gave my team the goal of "reducing costs" every year. No-one on the team even knew how much anything cost, because we had absolutely no involvement in any accounting. None. We could make educated guesses (if I do this faster, it will be cheaper, if I simplify a process, it will be cheaper), but we couldn't put a dollar amount to any improvements. It meant that most years, no-one on the team achieved that goal. If we did, we had to ask the people who did track the money for some details so we could make a rough calculation to include on our self-evaluation.
Love it! I still feel that often PM ends up defining goals in a restrictive, performative manners because teams feels they have "no clear directions" if the goal is ambiguous or doesn't tell them exactly what to achieve. Hence the focus on the M in SMART.
I guess the maturity of the team influences widely what kind of goal a team actually needs.
Great article!
The only thing I'd add (it's sort of already in there, but not explicitly) is that good goals are defined from the point of view of the people who will be expected to achieve them, whereas bad goals are written from the perspective of the people who will be reviewing (*not* writing) the performance reviews.
Example: I used to work at a place that gave my team the goal of "reducing costs" every year. No-one on the team even knew how much anything cost, because we had absolutely no involvement in any accounting. None. We could make educated guesses (if I do this faster, it will be cheaper, if I simplify a process, it will be cheaper), but we couldn't put a dollar amount to any improvements. It meant that most years, no-one on the team achieved that goal. If we did, we had to ask the people who did track the money for some details so we could make a rough calculation to include on our self-evaluation.
Can you please provide some examples?
Interesting take. I wish the good/bad metrics concept would also creep into our stakeholders inboxes/brains.
Great article on goals, John
Almost feel like the definitive piece on goals that I can use to refer to whenever discuss goals with other people
I have almost given up using the term “goal” for “intention” as used by Stephen bungay in his book 📕 “Art of Action”
How do you see Bungay’s intention in the context of your goal essay ?
I thought the closest link between bungay’s intention and your good goal characteristic is that both
- care about context
- allow sufficient flexibility and adaptability
What are your thoughts?
Love it! I still feel that often PM ends up defining goals in a restrictive, performative manners because teams feels they have "no clear directions" if the goal is ambiguous or doesn't tell them exactly what to achieve. Hence the focus on the M in SMART.
I guess the maturity of the team influences widely what kind of goal a team actually needs.