Setting Smart Objectives

Course Prerequisites

None.

Course Overview

Look at your organization: decisions are made or sometimes avoided, projects are initiated, sometimes terminated, people are promoted, sometimes…

Organizational life is an unending sequence of decisions and actions. What motivates it all? We spend countless hours pondering strategies, devising plans of action, structuring projects and managing them but we rarely spend the necessary time reflecting about the validity of the objectives which underpin them. Setting smart objectives should be the first priority of an organization. This 1 day course defines the objective setting process and provides answers to the following questions:

Does your organization set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) objectives?
What is the objective setting process?
Who sets the objectives?
Are the objectives frequently reviewed?
Are the objectives distorted, manipulated … or worse?
How can we implement AT ALL LEVELS a process that will ensure that our actions are based on SMART objectives?

Course Benefits

There is no bad strategy, only poorly chosen objectives. Participants will learn how to set great objectives

Who Should Attend

Executives, project managers, and any project team members who want to understand the dynamics of a well functioning, healthy project team and the role we all play in creating this environment. This course can be structured for individuals who want to improve their own understanding and bring that knowledge back to their projects, or for entire intact project teams that want to improve their ability to work together effectively.

Course Content

There is no bad strategy, only poorly chosen objectives

Objectives and Strategy for this course!

Introduction. Organizations are decision-making machines. Decisions are made within the context of a strategy to meet objectives. At least that is the theory, the reality is that people set objectives, elaborate strategies and set objectives.

Now, what is an objective?

Whereas a desire or wish is purely qualitative and a target is quantified, an objective is qualitative and quantitative; it has 4 components: attribute, scale of measurement, target, horizon
SMART = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound

Examples

Case Study

This case study illustrates how we tend to focus on the action to be taken and overlook the underlying, unstated objective. Objectives are contingent: they vary according to the situation. Flexible objectives: monitor the situation, then adapt the objective.

Mission, purpose, goals, objectives, targets

Management by objectives! Whose objectives?!
Review of the academic literature on objectives and the objective setting process
The three hats – when we set objectives, we wear one of three hats. Which one do you wear more often than not?

My Objective or Yours?

Corporate objectives versus group objectives versus personal objectives. How to fuse them.
Objectives and incentives – what’s in it for me?
Recognize the stakeholders’ objectives
- - The SMART process: a step-by-step approach to setting SMART objectives
  - 3 participants are invited to expose a situation that they are currently faced with – or a problem they have recently experienced.
  - The class is divided into 3 groups of “consultants”.
  - The consultants meet and propose SMART objectives to their “client”.
  - Group discussion

MTI Event Dates