Now that we have expounded on Setting SMART Goals and How to Turn Work Objectives into Smart Goals, you can attest to the fact that you now have a good knowledge of SMART Goals. But today, I will be sharing with you ways you can track and monitor your smart Goals.
There are strategies that would help you achieve your smart Goals which includes setting key milestones, metrics and timelines that you need to stick to and how to monitor and track progress over the course of the year.
Strategies To Achieving Your Goals
1) Get Buy In From Those Involved
As a business owner, you probably rely on your staff to help you achieve the goals you have set. If a goal requires work by a subordinate, it is really important to involve them in the planning process as you refine the deliverables and milestones they will be responsible for.
Research has shown that if you get the buy-in of the staff involved, and ensure that they understand the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ and agree to the details of the goal, performance will improve significantly and you will be far more likely to achieve the intended result.
Therefore the first strategy to achieving goals is ensure that you get the buy-in of your staff for all those goals that they will have a role in contributing to.
2) Define Key Metrics, Timelines and Systems For Tracking Progress
The second strategy in achieving your goals is to ensure that you have a process and a tool that will help you to measure your progress at key intervals so that you can revise your action plans where necessary throughout the year.
Start by reviewing the key inputs to your goal plan – review the goal, the actions required, and the priority. Make sure you’ve set the time by which you will have accomplished the goal and how you will measure your success.
Next, for those goals that require a series of actions to help you achieve them, build out timelines and measurements for each action that will contribute to the goal. This is like creating a small ‘project plan’ for each goal.
Once you’ve established your detailed action plans that will lead to successful goal completion and are sure that they are attainable based on the resources and time you have available (if not, revise) then share this plan with others.
3) Share Your Goals Publicly
The third strategy for success with your SMART goals is to make sure that you share your goals publicly.
It is important that you work with your accountability partner (who is a person who will hold you accountable for meeting your goals and help you to assess your progress). This can be your boss, a peer or a friend. Publicly stating your goals and committing to reaching them has been shown to dramatically increase the likelihood that you will do what it takes to reach these goals. This can be as simple as printing your goal plan and posting it in your office and explaining it to a colleague, but, even better, why not share some of your goals in the study group and see what your peers are also committing to?
4) Set Periodic Reviews
The fourth strategy to help you achieve your SMART goals is to make sure that you set periodic reviews to assess your progress and make any changes required to make sure you are on track. Remember, what gets monitored gets done.
How often you review progress will depend on the timeframes you’ve set. You’ll need to consider which is the most appropriate – weekly, monthly, quarterly – depending on the level of detail of your action plans.
You can review your progress on your own, or with your accountability partner, boss or peer.
Feedback is critical to success- knowing how you are doing will allow you to adjust your goals, level of effort or resources to make sure you are doing what it takes to succeed.
Therefore you will need to include your deadlines and milestone goals in your calendar and to review progress at set intervals.
You must ensure you put every action mentioned here into practice and imbibe in the way that best suits you.
You can still catch up on the Goal Setting Series here.
Cheers
