Developing Project Objectives

Once a mission statement has been developed, you can write your project objectives. Note that objectives are much more specific than the mission statement itself and define results that must be achieved in order for the overall mission to be accomplished. Also, an objective defines the desired end result.

Goal setting has traditionally been based on past performance. This practice has tended to perpetuate the sins of the past.

—J. M. Juran

I may want to finish this chapter by 10 o’clock this morning. That is my desired outcome or result—my objective. The way in which I achieve that objective is to perform a number of tasks. These might include typing text into my computer, reviewing some other literature on the topic about which I am writing, calling a colleague to ask a question for clarification, and printing out the chapter, proofing it, and entering some revisions into my computer.

The following acronym may help you remember the essential qualities that a statement of objectives must have. We say that an objective must be SMART, each letter standing for a condition as follows:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time-limited

Dr. W. Edwards Deming has raised some serious questions about the advisability of trying to quantify goals and objectives. He argued, in Out of the Crisis (1986), that there is no point in setting quotas for a manufacturing process to reach. If the system is stable, he argued, then there is no need to specify a goal, since you will get whatever the system can produce. A goal beyond the capability of the system can’t be achieved.

An objective specifies a desired end result to be achieved. A task is an activity performed to achieve that result. An objective is usually a noun, whereas a task is a verb.

On the other hand, if the system is not stable (in the statistical sense of the word), then again there is no need to specify a quota, since there is no way to know what the capability of the system is (Deming, p. 76).

In project work, we may know the capability of a person by looking at his or her past performance, but unless you have a large number of samples, you have no way of knowing exactly what the person can do, since there is always variability in people’s performance. Furthermore, it does no good to base a quota on what someone else has done. The quota must be valid for the person who is going to do the job this time.

We all know that some people are capable of more output than others. So defining the measurement and attainability aspects of goal or objective setting is very difficult. I go into this more in chapter 5 when I discuss time estimating.

I have found the following two questions to be useful both in setting objectives and in monitoring progress toward those objectives:

• What is our desired outcome? This is called the outcome frame and helps keep you focused on the result you are trying to achieve, rather than on the effort being expended to get there.

• How will we know when we achieve it? I call this the evidence question. This question is very useful for establishing exit criteria for objectives that cannot be quantified.

Some Examples of Objectives

• Our objective is to develop a one-minute commercial to solicit contributions to WXYZ to air on local TV stations by June 5, 2002.

• Our objective is to raise $600,000 in funds from local viewers by September 18, 2002.