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 business or personal finances, university degrees or NGO programs, website promotion or weight loss.
Setting objectives and milestones is of crucial importance for any planning activity and is
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 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 business processes, and we will review some guidelines of setting objectives.
The Importance of Setting Objectives
One might wonder why we need to establish objectives in first place, why not let company or a specific activity just run smoothly into future and see where it gets. That would be case only if we really do not care whether activity in discussion will be successful or not: but then, to use a popular saying, "if something deserves to be performed, then it deserves to be performed well". In other words, if we don't care for results, we should not proceed with action at all.
Setting objectives before taking any action is only right thing to do, for several reasons:
- it gives a target to aim to, therefore all actions and efforts will be focused on attaining objective instead of being inefficiently used; - gives participants a sense of direction, a glimpse of where they’re going to; - motivates leaders and their teams, since it is quite custom of establishing some sort of reward once team successfully completed a project; - offers support in evaluating 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 explain five characteristics of a good-established objective – things are somehow blurry and confused in their minds. Since they can't explain in details what SMART objectives really are, it is highly doubtful that they will always be able to formulate such objectives.
It is still unclear from where confusion comes: perhaps there are too many sources of information, each of them with a slightly different approach upon what a SMART objective really is; or perhaps most people only briefly "heard" about it and they never get to reach substance behind packaging.
Either way, let us try to uncover meaning of SMART acronym and see how we can formulate efficient objectives. SMART illustrates 5 characteristics of an efficient objective; it stands for Specific – Measurable – Attainable – Relevant – Timely.
1. Be SPECIFIC!
When it comes of business planning, "specific" illustrates a situation that is easily identified and understood. It is usually linked to some mathematical determinant that imprints a specific character to a given action: most common 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 report in several copies", you did not provide team with a specific instruction. It is unclear what 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 report in 5 copies" – your team will know exactly what you expect and will have less chances to fail in delivering 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 possibility to measure, to track action(s) associated with given objective.
We must set up a distinct system or establish clear procedures of how actions will be monitored, measured and recorded. If an objective and actions pertaining to it cannot be quantified, it is most likely that objective is wrongly formulated and we should reconsider it.
