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Setting Up Objectives

Performance has to be planned, controlled and ultimately measured against an objective. For that reason the first preoccupation of a manager is to define objectives avoiding conflicts which might arise specially in large organisations, where objectives might be contradictory. The existence of conflictive objectives and even opposing objectives in any subsystem, or institution participating or within the environment, is key to systems reasoning. The acknowledgement of this, from the earliest stages of the project, will give rise to what is called collaborative management; a response to previous systems which have led to conflicts among parties, increasing costs, reduced quality of the different outputs and missed time targets.

The most important step to make towards a successful implementation, is to have a clear set of objectives. In the context of project management, objectives must be defined with regard to the project itself as a system and as part of the ongoing or long term objectives of the corporation. The systems theory applied to management, emphasises the need to include the different interests of all stakeholders involved in the project. Figure II.3 shows the relation between the firm or corporation, and the stakeholders.

It is important to clarify that in systems theory, objectives and outputs are not equivalent, since the defining function of a project is mostly concerned with the production and distribution of wealth. Amongst the main objectives one could include: the fulfilment of the client's objectives; the satisfaction of consumers and end users, the development of workforce, and, the satisfaction of a corporation's objectives, as part of its ongoing set of projects.

To clarify this point, a project could be at the same time unprofitable and still satisfy the firm's objectives. That would be the case of those projects that introduce the company to a new market. In those cases it might be permissible to trade off the losses against obtaining a foothold of the market. Subsequently, through the implementation of other projects, the corporation will be able to generate profits. Without a long term, holistic view of the prospects, the manager is unable to perform adequately.

The project team must have a very specific set of objectives or desired outputs, most of the time different from those of the institutions taking part. This is a key for success, since these objectives will set the ground for performance evaluation and control. The team leader must make sure that the members participate in this process and are linked to those held by other stakeholders. The selection of a distinct, quantifiable objective is key to reaching accountability. "Only when performance goals are set does the process of discussing the goals and the approaches to them give team members a clearer and clearer choice: they can disagree with a goal and the path that the team selects and, in effect opt out, or they can pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates" (Katzembach,1993).

Objectives must be as follows:

Precise. Defined in quantifiable terms, not only in relation to the units of measurement but most importantly, in relation to the use of clear terms, avoiding ambiguity and different interpretation from the group members.

Achievable. Realistic and possible to reach within the group's capacity. Setting objectives too high imposes a heavy burden on the members who might, in the middle of the project, resign or lower their output. If the objective is too modest from the start of the project, the team will not find any incentive to improve.

Measurable and set in phases. The amount of progress must be easy to quantify at any moment or at predefined milestones. It is also important to divide the objective into sub-objectives, so that members know whether work is going according to schedule or whether they need to establish corrective measures.

Since individual as well as group performance has to be measured, objectives must be segmented and phased so that members know their contribution to the group and their own effectiveness. This reduces the possibility of taking extreme disciplinary actions, since the individual knows what he must achieve, and so does the group. Phasing allows for preventive actions and early warnings.

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