A smart goal is something which is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. When the goals are being set, whether its personal / professional, these are some of the important characteristics. However, I have been witnessing then and there some of the most unrealistic goals in the recent past and this makes me wondering if the quality of project management is witnessing a degradation these days.
Some of the interesting ones which I did come across in past few months:
1. In one of teams, the target for the number of support tickets was increased 300% without any additional increase in capacity allocation. To make it more interesting, there were very few challengers who actually questioned this logic.
2. One of my managers set goals which were SMART in his perspective. However, they went against some of the fundamental principles of lean - be scrum master for multiple teams amounting to about 40 members, in parallel manage the product quality along with actually spend 50% of time doing actual test execution.
3. One of us had a really interesting goal - to be a product owner and be a scrum master.
4. Very interesting one was - Fixed price project was using scrum!! (its never a nice combination). To make it interesting, the target was to deliver stories worth 100% of available capacity.
If stretch becomes the baseline, will there be any motivation left to challenge oneself? If a goal is not meeting SMART conditions, its more likely to fail than succeed.
Some of the interesting ones which I did come across in past few months:
1. In one of teams, the target for the number of support tickets was increased 300% without any additional increase in capacity allocation. To make it more interesting, there were very few challengers who actually questioned this logic.
2. One of my managers set goals which were SMART in his perspective. However, they went against some of the fundamental principles of lean - be scrum master for multiple teams amounting to about 40 members, in parallel manage the product quality along with actually spend 50% of time doing actual test execution.
3. One of us had a really interesting goal - to be a product owner and be a scrum master.
4. Very interesting one was - Fixed price project was using scrum!! (its never a nice combination). To make it interesting, the target was to deliver stories worth 100% of available capacity.
If stretch becomes the baseline, will there be any motivation left to challenge oneself? If a goal is not meeting SMART conditions, its more likely to fail than succeed.
