Develop Meaningful Objectives

  ProjectsAtWork  

Follow these four pointers to help ensure your project objectives are crystal clear.

As a project manager, developing concise and unambiguous project objectives (or statements of your project’s desired results) increases the chances that you’ll successfully accomplish them.

In the newly updated Project Management for Dummies, 3rd Edition (Wiley Publishing, Inc., May 2010), author Stanley Portny, PMP, suggests following these pointers to ensure your project objectives are crystal clear:

     > Focus on outcomes rather than activities. (For example, “produce a final, approved report” is preferable to “read and review draft report.”)

     > Make sure your objectives are SMART (specific, measurable, aggressive, realistic, and time-sensitive).

     > Use clear language — no technical jargon or acronyms.

     > Make sure every objective has at least one measure and every measure has at least one performance target. (For example, if the narrative statement of your objective is “to develop a new product,” one measure would be “target completion date” and the performance target for that measure would be “August 15, 20__.”)

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