| CREATING INITIATIVES AND OBJECTIVES Your planning meeting should focus on the areas that need attention. Once those areas have been identified, determine where they fall in order of priority. Then write objectives to ensure that they are addressed. Assuming that the agency felt that training and development was an important area, what needs to be done to get the ball rolling? First, get the objective into written form. Here are some basic concepts to keep in mind when writing objectives: 1. The clearer the goal, the better the chance for achieving it. 2. Progress can be measured only in terms of what one is trying to accomplish. 3. Have a clear understanding of the five basic management functions: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. A formally written objective indicates what is to be achieved, and describes in step-by-step actions how, by whom, and when it is to be achieved. Objectives must be precise, attainable, consistent, written, flexible, and measurable in order to be achieved. Objectives also must be challenging enough to make them worth doing; that is, their completion should provide meaningful benefit for the agency. The following ground rules should be considered when preparing objectives: 1. Make objectives as specific as possible. Avoid vague, general statements. 2. If possible, define the objective in terms of a single event. Don't try to complete several goals in one. (The steps themselves may be a series of events, with each step having its own result, but the overall objective should produce one result.) 3. Test the validity of the objective. 4. Be aware of unforeseeable difficulties. Objectives should be flexible. You may get into one and find that it can't work without adjustments; if it is flexible, you can make the adjustments and get on with it. 5. Use language that anyone can understand when they read it. 6. Be sure that the people assigned to complete the steps have the requisite experience and professional ability. 7. Remember that normal day-to-day work must go on, so don't overwhelm your staff with a multitude of steps to be completed. That is the main reason for prioritizing activities. You may carry an objective over from one planning year to the next or take it in stages. 8. The date for the final step to be completed should be the same date as the objective's completion date. 9. Tie completion of the objective's steps into performance evaluations for the people charged with completing them-and be sure that they know it. The next step is to consider what format the objective will take. It should be no longer than one page, and include the following: 1. An overall statement that defines the objective, when it is to be completed, and the reason for completing it in the first place 2. The benefits for completing it, summarized in outline form 3. The objective's priority 4. The control person (the person who has overall responsibility for completing it) 5. The action steps, listed in sequential order, along with the person responsible for completing the step and the date it needs to be completed Let's go through the development of an objective from the start. For our purposes, the objective will be staff training. 1. Overall Objective Let's say you have a number of people who have been on staff for many years, making little effort to keep up to date, attend training sessions, and so forth. In the planning meeting, you have discussed all of the reasons why individuals have failed to keep up to date or continued to polish their skills and improve technical knowledge. You end by deciding that your staff needs to be updated and announce that it is the agency's desire that all staff members get on track for regular and continuous training and skill development. What then is the focus of the objective? You may have to go through a number of drafts to get to a final version. The final wording might go like this: "Objective No. 1: Develop and implement a comprehensive, ongoing training program for our entire staff, which will focus on their technical, work, and people skills and, in addition to contributing to their professional development, create the professional image necessary to the agency's success. This objective is to be completed no later than December 31, 19xx." What have we said in this objective? First, there is a commitment to develop a program. You might think of this exercise as a statement about what you intend to do, why you are doing it, and when it is to be completed. Think of the action, the desired result, and the date when it is to be completed. Don't put action steps in the main statement. 2. Benefits Write out the benefits that will be realized from completing the objective. In the staff-training objective, they might be as follows: - Better utilization of staff and more sensible allocation of staff work assignments
- Increased production, income, and profit
- Better retention of existing clients and staff
- Better management control
- More motivated and committed staff
- Increased ability of the agency to promote completely from within, since staff is always ready for that next opportunity.
3. Priority All of your objectives are important, or you would not be writing them in the first place. By identifying the priority as "high," "medium," or "low," you will determine which ones to work on first. 4. Control Person Every objective needs someone who will stay on top of it, making sure that everything gets done on time, and once it is done, that it gets to the person responsible for the next action. The control person may have an active role in completing some of the action steps; if a problem arises, the control person addresses it. 5. Action Steps The last area to address is the action steps, the person responsible for completing each one, and the date by which each step is to be completed. The action steps are just that: actions to be taken. They must be written so that anyone who looks at them can understand what action needs to be taken. Another item to be aware of is timing. Don't write a two-stage action step, with each stage to be completed at a different time. It is better to outline one action to be completed, get it done, and move on to the next. Some actions take longer to complete than others. Keep the steps in a logical and orderly numbered sequence; also, keep the dates in their calendar order. The steps should flow into each other, with the dates allowing enough time to get each step done. OBJECTIVE: ABC AGENCY "Develop and implement a comprehensive, ongoing training program for our entire staff, which will focus on their technical, work, and people skills and, in addition to contributing to their professional development, create the professional image necessary to the agency's success. This objective is to be completed no later than December 31, 19xx." Benefits: - Better utilization of staff and more sensible allocation of staff work
- Assignments
- Increased production, income, and profit
- Better retention of existing clients and staff
- Better management control
- More motivated and committed staff
- Increased ability of the agency to promote completely from within, since staff is always ready for that next opportunity.
Priority: High Control person: Agency Manager To be | Action Steps | Who | Done by | | 1. Interview all staff personnel and determine level of training, experience, ongoing education, self-study seminars, company training courses, etc. | AB | 1-31-xx | | 2. Based on findings in No. 1, develop a matrix that displays current levels of education, experience, training, etc., by staff person. | PM | 2-15-xx | | 3. Establish standards for each position and for the staff occupants of those positions. | PM | 2-28-xx | | 4. Determine what internal and external facilities are available and their costs, for whatever training and education is necessary. | PM |
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