The team I am working in has recently been required to set quarterly goals. This in and of itself was a simple task. We have a list of things that we want/need to achieve over the coming months.

The problems start when it come to defining success or not of the listed goals. Why? It because the powers that be want success to be determined by metrics, something that we are sorely lacking.

Though one of the goals for the period is to build a reporting system.As one collegue so elequently put it is:

the measure of success of this task is to be able to measure success

So how do you set goals when you need to be able to define success criteria, but don’t have the tools to do so?

The simple answer is that you can’t.

That does not mean that you can’t set goals, only that you need to be pragmatic in what goals are set. The solution we went for involved:

  • setting goals that can be measured, even if they do not align directly with the work you will be doing.
  • have a roadmap that provide tools to measure of success in future quaters (reporting).
  • remember that the wording of the goal is not as important as the work completed.