What is an Objective?

Objectives are concise statements that describe what you want to achieve. They should inspire, engage, challenge, and motivate the team. Objectives are time-bound and qualitative.

On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy before the joint session of congress, set the following national goal:

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

Even though this objective is longer term, it is useful as an illustration. Let’s evaluate this objective against our criteria.

• Concise: It is concise. Previously, NASA had eight wordy goals.
• Inspirational: At that time, many perceived the Americans were losing the space race to the Russians. Kennedy’s declaration focused the priorities of NASA. It was challenging and visible.
• Time-Bound: He set the timeline by stating “before this decade is out.”
• Qualitative: Kennedy set the quality standards for what needs to happen, “to land” and to “return safely.” He did not use numbers or describe how to do it.

To make your team objectives work, there are some rules you should follow:

1. Each team should have 1 or 2 objectives. Focus is important.
2. The objective should provide business value. An objective should support the strategy. Otherwise, a team will waste time, energy, and resources.
3. The objective should be attainable. For higher-level objectives, the sum of the supporting objectives should ensure the success of the higher-level objective. In our previous example, NASA had three supporting objectives to ensure the success of the overall objective: Propulsion (to lift the lunar module and men to the moon and back), Navigation (to get the spacecraft to the moon in the correct location), and Life Support (to keep the astronauts alive traveling and while on the moon.) For team objectives, the team will need to balance inspiration with practical limits that exist from a time and budget standpoint.
4. Senior leadership can veto objectives, but not dictate. The OKC process is both top-down and bottom-up. Once senior leadership establishes the top-level objectives, the team create their own objectives that align to the top-level objectives or organizational strategy.

Do you need help creating team objectives? Reach out to us below.