Goal setting and management

Goal setting for a project manager, task or team leader, or lead/supervisory/management personnel is often a subtle, complex process. It must comply with top level policies and help accomplish organizational goals, visions, and mission while meeting requirements such as budgets, innovations, employee training, delivery deadlines, manufacturing quotas, etc. that are often driven by lateral requirements within the organization as well as top down direction.

It is important to understand an individual goal setting process and have practiced and polished individual personal skills in setting and attaining personal goals. b:Wikiversity:School_of_Engineering:Critical_Thinking_&_Self_Communication:goal_setting

It is even more important to acknowledge that achieving participant buyin requires discussion and coordination of group goals as well as each individual's personal goals or agenda. Each team member must feel their input and contribution are valued and impact overall group goals and the group leadership team or process must find ways to resolve and remove obstacles or conflicts resulting from conflicting individual and group goals.

Often inexperienced managers or leaders will attempt to apply a dictatorial or authoritarian model which assumes that since they are in charge they will specify goals and tasks necessary to achieve their superiors goals and task assignments. Theoretically everyone else will hop to and efficiently accomplish the work tasks as directed to achieve the mandated tasks and goals. Often this approach will yield initial results as experienced team players attempt to compensate for this deficiency in leadership skills while addressing improving the neophyte leader's skills and attitudes. Sometimes this works out well but often it results in disaster as the neophyte manager incorrectly interprets team success as validation of the merit of his authoritarian approach. Eventually (sometimes quickly or instantaneously) the honeymoon or cut them some slack period is over and group performance falls off until the deficiency in team management's coordination skills improve sufficiently to recover adequate team member buyin to specific common corporate/group/team goals.

Goal setting and management

See also