Does this sound familiar? You set a big goal and feel a wave of excitement. After a few months, you realize you’re nowhere near reaching your destination. Feeling disheartened, you give up and abandon the goal completely.
When we set unrealistic goals, we set ourselves up for failure. Maybe that’s why less than 10% of people follow through on their new year’s resolutions. The solution to avoiding unrealistic goals is to use a goal planning method.
Let’s talk about goal-driven metrics. We’ll show you how to create a framework that works for you, not against you.
How can you set goals and keep track of them? Read on to find out.
Getting Specific With Goal-Driven Metrics
Tired of stressing out as you try to achieve vague goal-driven metrics? Then you need to use the SMART goal planning method. SMART is an acronym that stands for; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
As you read through this article, if the SMART method doesn’t work, you can use the OKR framework instead.
OKR Framework
Did you want to look into OKR planning or setting up an OKR framework? When it comes to KPI reports, OKRs are a bit different.
What are OKRs? OKRs stands for; Objectives and Key Results. It’s a type of goal planning framework that’s similar to SMART goal setting. You can follow along with the SMART method.
However, you’ll be focusing on the key results, rather than the other aspects of goal planning.
Be Extra Specific
The first part of setting a SMART goal is to get specific. What do you need to be specific about? Everything that your goal entails!
What exactly are you trying to accomplish? This isn’t a time for vague answers.
Wanting to improve your company’s customer service isn’t a specific goal. Wanting to boost your company’s customer service ratings by 10% within one year is a specific goal.
After identifying what it is that you want for your organization, the next step is to dive into the hows. Who exactly is going to be responsible for making the goal a reality?
Will you be the one shouldering the responsibilities? Or are you going to delegate the responsibilities for the goal across your entire team? Once you know what needs to be accomplished and who’s responsible for it, you can begin to think about the steps.
Thinking through all of these questions will help you get to the core of what you’re aiming for.
Use Measurable Milestones
Why do your goals need to be measurable? When you aren’t able to measure a goal, it can be difficult to track progress. A lot of time can go by, and you can fall further and further behind.
Whereas when you have a measurable goal, you’ll quickly be able to see if your organization is going off track. If for any reason, you’re behind on achieving your goal, you can assess what’s causing the slowdown.
For instance, let’s say that you plan on growing your company’s revenue by 5% within the next year. The last thing you’d want to do is set the goal and then wait a year to check up on it.
Instead, you should be checking in on the progress of your goal every single month. Measuring goals is another way to stay motivated as well. As you see yourself progressing towards your goal, it’ll be easier to stay committed.
Achievable and Relevant Goals
Remember how we said that unrealistic goals can be disheartening? That’s why the A in the acronym SMART stands for achievable. All of your goals need to be achievable. After setting a specific goal, do a reality check.
Is this goal going to be something that pushes you towards success or causes an inevitable failure?
When you set goals that your team can reasonably achieve, you’ll be able to put your company into the mindset of success. The last thing you want to do is discourage your team by creating goals that were impossible to reach in the first place.
If you’re the one setting the business goals fine-tuning the achievability will be easy. However, if you’re not setting the goal and it’s handed down from somewhere else, be sure to communicate your capabilities.
Let the higher up know about any restraints that you might be dealing with. Even if you can’t change the end goal, you can at least make your position known from the start.
Along with achievability, your goal also needs to be relevant. Why exactly are you setting the goal for your organization? If you can’t clearly answer the question, you probably need to rethink your goal together.
Time-Bound Achievements
The last letter of the SMART goal setting acronym stands for time-bound. You and your entire organization need to be on the same timeline for the goal. If you’re trying to achieve the goal within 3 months but your employees think they have an entire year, there’s going to be trouble.
To avoid any discrepancies, we suggest having frequent goal meetings. You can conduct these meetings in person or virtually. It’ll be a great opportunity for you to talk to employees about how the goals are coming along and listen to any feedback they might have.
Since SMART goals should always have time-related parameters built-in, it’ll be easy for you to stay within a designated time frame. No matter how large or small, your goal is, knowing the deadline can make a huge difference!
Anything Is Possible With Goal Planning
Now’s the perfect time to start using the SMART goal-driven metrics. Take some time out of your day to think about goals that would help your company in a realistic way. From there, you can decide how you go about achieving the goal and who you’re going to involve.
Don’t forget to track your progress with frequent goal meetings, it’s a great way to boost motivation. If you need a little bit more motivation to get through your day, see what the rest of our website has to offer.