Goal setting methods...

[EngineerDave]

I was wondering if any of you have any specific goal setting methods or techniques you find useful.

More specifically is there any method other than the normal paper and pencil method that you have utilized to great success?

I will often write down goals on paper and then kind of forget about them after a while. I have them in mind, but don't review them as much as I should. I have contemplated getting one of the software based systems for goal tracking. Can you recommend any of those? I know there are alot of them out there, so I was looking for feedback on any specific ones that you found useful.

 

[Theophilus]

Franklin Covey has a system that integrates into daily planning for Palms and other hand-held PDAs. Last year, I was getting overwhelmed with client appointments, etc. and couldn't keep a focus on things very well. I found that using such a plan worked well and I get a great deal more out of my Palm now as well (e-books, low-resolution versatile camera built-in, planning, Excel documents, etc).

I recommend checking into something like this. The software itself is a tad buggy--but if you don't do all sorts of tweaking (like I tend to do) you probably won't crash it as much as I have done and will be quite satisfied with it. The Franklin Covey store I went to gave me their software (and other great Palm-based software) at the same price as other stores offered the Palm itself--a good deal even if you decide not to use the software.

By the way, I'm the type of person who never used to use an organizer (paper planner). I now make great use of my Palm.




Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

 

[EngineerDave]

I looked at the Franklin Covey site. Does the palm version of this software offer all the same features as the desktop software. I know it says they integrate, but I wasn't sure how many of the features of the desktop version work on the palm software.

 

[Theophilus]

You can use either or both simultaneously. However, if you assign specific buttons on your Palm to access the various applications, you can only have one application per button (Franklin's Task list or Palms task list, for example). You can access the programs through the menus without using buttons, and both will synchronize with one another on your PC if you decide to use both versions of each concurrently. Quite flexible.




Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

 

[PSE]

We have instituted a goal setting plan that tends to be remembered and reviewed as it is directly tied to the individuals annual performance review. It starts out with the CEO's plan that he presents to the board for the coming year. The next level of managers then look at his overall plan and develop their plans to support his goals. Their plans get reviewed by the next lower level and plans developed etc. The end result is that your individual goal plan is developed to support your supervisors/managers goal plan and on up the chain. The goals are weighted in relative value (sum total of 1.0 or 100%) and completion dates assigned. Your review is then based upon how well you did. You rank yourself, and your manager ranks you then compare. There are a couple of standard goals (personal excellence and dealing with unplanned work) but the rest falls under this framework.

So far, it appears to work well, the company has had over 5 quarters of double digit growth and has set some internal records for sales & income. Bonus checks have been nice in this day and age.

Regards,

 

[mechantaeus]

I use MS Outlook to set and assign tasks to myself anf others. It has features such as appointments, calender and alarms too. The best part is on a network it will show you as busy to another person if there is a conflict in timing.

 

[Maui]

PSE, if you don't mind providing such information in this forum, where do you work? The plan that you describe makes sense, and I suspect that other companies could benefit from this model.


Maui

 

[corus]

What PSE describes is simply called 'cascading objectives', or in other words the boss has some objectives so he passes them down to the next level and so forth. The moral of the story is that the cleaner has all the dirty work to do, eventually.

corus

 

[GregLocock]

We use cascaded objectives as well. Acoording to the head honcho we need to sell more cars and make a bigger profit. Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[Maui]

Greg and Corus, are you the ones who bat clean-up in your respective companies? The objective Greg provided from his head honcho is about the same level of detail that we get where I work. What are the evils associated with this type of process, other than the one already provided by Corus?


Maui

 

[IRstuff]

Hypothetically, there are generally two types of goals.

>> Top-down allocated goals. If correctly done, then there are tangible goals at your level such as 5% increased productivity, or using a new tool that will reduce analysis time, bring in one contract [actually was my manager's goal], etc.

>> Bottom-up goals. These are the goals that you and your manager establish that relate to your personal development, e.g., learn a new tool, increase your job responsibilities, learn to delegate more [that always shows up on my review ;-)], etc.

Again, hypothetically, the goals need to be monitored regularly for progress and there should be management and employee buy-in and dedication to fulfilling the agree-upon goals.

Usually, most companies fail miserably on even establishing goals and/or figuring out how to allocate more meaningful goals downward. If they at least manage that, they fail miserably at monitoring and encouraging progress toward those goals.

This, to be fair, is a non-trivial proposition. And just because it's difficult and often prone to failure is not a reason for condemning or ridiculing the process. In some sense, at least there is a attempt at raising you above the level of a mindless cog in the machine.

You could rise to being an entire gearbox!! ;-)

TTFN

 

[GregLocock]

The organisation I work for has 9 levels of management between me and the big boss. So if it is a game of chinese whispers and we manage a 90% success rate in interpreting each cascade, that means that my objectives are about 39% aligned with his. Hmm, sounds about right.

OK, that's fun, but not relevant.

Advantages: it is rational, flexible, and focussed. If you and your manager agree on a particular emphasis, that's fine, that's between you and him.

Disadvantages: it is actually quite time consuming to produce properly aligned objectives for technical functions (like mine) in a manufacturing based organisation. To be honest we regard it as more b- paperwork, and tend to do our cascades 20 minutes before they are due in. The cascades tend to be target driven which also lays a veneer of objectivity over the process - which is a sham. Objective measures of an engineer's performance are hard to come by (we actually use a sort of 360 degree review for the important stuff like pay rises).

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[PSE]

The company I work for has a considerably flatter management structure than Greg's so there is possibly less "diffusion" of goals as they get passed down. Corus does bring up a point that eventually, when you get to the "rank and file", their daily work does not really change that much. What the method can do, is to prioritize and communicate those projects coming down the pipeline.

Pretty much still working for us as we have finished 8 quarters of continued growth.

Regards,

 

[automatic2]

Dave, I've found that my goals had sat around on paper for years until realized that plans further described them, and that activities set the plans into motion. What actually got it going though was the when I decided that 'systems' where required to facilitate those everyday things. For instance, I never had a business card when I should have. I needed a system to make that happen. I bought a small card holder and now have clean crisp cards to hand out wherever I'm at.