Sandee MurraySr. Project Manager| SGFFrederick, Md, United States
Hey Guys,
I need to create a couple 2021 goals for determining my work performance in 2021. I am a PM that manages my own projects and is also responsible for helping other team members complete their projects and keeping this to their due dates. I am not their manager, just hired to be their nag HA.
Can you think of any performance goals that you think make sense. What are your work performance goal? Maybe I can get some inspiration there!
I would recommend speaking with your people manager about this as no matter what performance goals or objectives you come up with, if they don't align with what your manager had in mind when it comes time for them to evaluate you it won't matter.
Are you the only PM in the company? If not, I'd expect there should be some consistency in goals for the PMs across your organization so you may want to reach out to some of them to find out what their goals are.
I'm doing the same thing today. Typically, I use a combination of project schedule or cost related goals, personal growth goals, and goals related to organizational priorities. I try to set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound), but that's not always possible for some.
For project schedule related, this might be completion of major milestones on specific projects, or on-time performance for lower level tasks. Be careful about these if external factors can upset your schedules (particularly during the current pandemic uncertainties). Make sure they are things that are actually measurable too. Our organization uses a tracking system where I can pull task completion metrics for all groups by project and set a target of 90% on-time for example. If you don't have such a system, obviously you can't set those metrics. Also, don't use metrics where you really have no influence to change.
Personal growth goals are my favorite, because when my manager signs off on my goals, they're responsible to support. If I want to take on new responsibilities, get a certification, mentor students, or deliver a special topic at a professional expo, I'll include those.
Organizations also create yearly priorities, so I'll tie some of mine to those. Often I'll use the performance goals of my director or manager, and tailor them to my own work. If safety is a priority this year, and I'm the team safety focal, I'll set goals related to that. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
Being essentially retire with occasional gigs over the last five years my personal goals center around golf, grandkids ands staying healthy. My professional goal is to keep up with latest developments in the project management world and play with concepts I haven't investigated before. In 2020 that was the application of mind mapping to project management and administration.
During the last few years prior to retirement and in addition to goals related to specific projects with performance measured against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as negotiated with my manager, I focused on finding ways and means to transfer knowledge and experience to the upcoming project managers - team mentoring if you want - through both formal and informal get togethers. I believe they are still using some of the slide decks I put together at that time (yes, PowerPoint). Performance measurement was not very scientific, mostly feedback from the group - the more responses I got, the more satisfied I was that something was being achieved.
I guess what I'm saying here is that your personal performance goes beyond the formal KPIs and is more difficult to measure. You do it for personal satisfaction rather than recognition.
Note that the formal KPIs as negotiated with my manager focused on communication - success in communication with the client, upper management, other stakeholders, the team, the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), general staff as well as government agencies and authorities. Client satisfaction surveys were a big part of the measurement and evaluation as were corporate and external project audits.
Two KPIs that tend to conflict are related to innovation and ability to apply processes. My last few years in a government agency was a challenge as senior management talked innovation but focused on process. Standard response in the performance review was - "you didn't follow the rules but came up with great ideas". Saving Changes...
