Goal Setting Group Exercises
Goals are milestones along a pathway to success. Without effective goal setting, a person or organization can easily get off track and lose their direction, which can lead to failure. By taking the extra time to plan and set goals early in a process, you are ensuring that you won't lose valuable time or experience unnecessary frustration down the road.
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Set the Tone
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Group goals require that members have to be participants in the process in order to feel as though they are important to achieving the goal. No matter what exercises you plan, always include as many people in the organization as possible. In addition, set aside a specific time for your goal-setting session to underscore how important you believe it is.
Ultimately, it is imperative that the individuals in the group feel they are important to the goals and that the goals are important to the organization.
Higher Direction
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Goals should have some framework to help bound and define them. In most businesses, this direction comes from the company's vision statement or mission statement. A vision statement explains where the organization wants to be in the undefined distant future, while a mission statement is a concise summary of why the organization exists and what its function is. These should be referred to frequently during goal setting.
Brainstorming exercises are important in the process. You should allow open brainstorming and then use the vision and mission statements as refining tools after the idea session ends.
Types of Goals
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Goals are typically divided into group and individual categories. Group goals require the participation of everyone; individual goals should be set in a group forum so each person can be held accountable. Exercises in consensus building and conflict management are critical to making this part of goal setting effective.
SMART Goals
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The goals you set should be SMART---specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Each goal should be clearly stated, and it should also be obvious when the goal has been attained.
For instance, "Meeting customer demand" is a very poor goal, but "Exceeding customer expectations as reported in customer response surveys for the next six months" is much better. It defines what is being measured, how it's being measured and what the time frame is. Whether it's attainable and realistic requires a little more effort to determine, as shown below.
Tasks
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A goal that isn't written is a goal that was never set, so write the goal statement where everyone can see it. To determine if it is attainable and realistic, start defining the steps that are required to accomplish it. If the goal were to change a tire, the tasks might be things like "Raise the car" or "Loosen the lug nuts." If a set of tasks can be defined and will lead to the goal, then you can consider it realistic. Similarly, if you have access to everything you need to accomplish the tasks, or you can at least get access, then the goal is attainable.
Refine
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Once the tasks are refined they become lower-level goals. In the tire-changing example, the task "Raise the car" becomes a lower-level goal. It should be restated so that it meets the SMART criteria, and new tasks, such as "Remove the jack from the trunk" and "Set the jack in the proper location," should be defined. This process should be repeated until a process or plan is defined well enough to meet the organization's needs and can be carried out efficiently by the organization's members. Once that is accomplished, one last review should be done to ensure everyone has bought into the strategy and is accountable.
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