Manager Tools: MT Goals
In short:
MT goals are just the M and the T of the SMART goal concept, which is to say, Measurable and Time Bound.Horstman and Auzenne (2007)
Measurable
Manager Tools advises:
Have number for most goals I don’t 100% agree with this – I think a good goal should be have some objective signal that you passed or failed, but not all goals have great numbers. For example, I think the goal “the design doc is approved” is acceptable; I don’t think that goal is improved if it becomes “the design doc is approved by 7 people.” (Note that “the design doc is approved” is a mediocre goal, because approval is not necessarily objective: if an important stakeholder is missed …)
. “Even if you’re measuring something very soft, like customer satisfaction, or corporate reputation, or service experience, you’re going to want to have a number to describe your goal. It could be as simple as counting the number of positive emails you’ve gotten, on a trivial level.”Other proxy measures to consier are surveys, defect rate, etc.
Don’t use “reduce”/“improve”/etc.; instead, aim for an actual threshold.
Time Bound
Manager Tools offers some great advice:
- Don’t set a goal of “Q3”; instead, set a goal of “July 1st, 2021.” There is too much flexibility in a quarter and the goal loses a lot of its value.
- Annual goals should target the beginning of Q4 (it is a lot easier to slip from October to November than from December to January)