How to Set SMART Goals and Get Results | Google Project Management Certificate

this video is a part of the google project management certificate providing you with job-ready skills to start or advance your career in project management get access to practice exercises quizzes discussion forums job search help and more on coursera and you can earn your official certificate visit grow.google project cert to enroll in a full learning experience today [Music] welcome back by now you should have a better sense of how the different parts of initiation come together to form the beginnings of a project so far you've outlined the key components of project initiation and most importantly you've learned that a lack of preparation during this stage can lead to problems later on we're going to continue honing your project preparation skills once we're done here you'll be able to define and create project goals and deliverables the guiding stars of your project you'll also be able to define project scope the boundaries of your project that state what is and is not part of your project you'll be able to identify what's in scope and out of scope for a project and you'll be able to recognize scope creep something you need to keep a close eye on to help you reach your project goal finally you'll be able to explain different ways of defining and measuring your project success criteria before we get started i'd like to talk through an example that will follow for the rest of this course imagine that you're the lead project manager at officegreen a commercial landscaping company that specializes in plant decor for offices and other businesses the director of product at office screen has an idea for a new service called plant pals to offer high volume customers small low maintenance plants like little cacti leafy ferns for their desks as the project manager you've been tasked with managing the rollout of this new service as we go through this course we'll return to your role as the project manager at office screen to help teach you about project goals deliverables and success criteria you'll also see the role your team and stakeholders play in creating and following these three important components at the end you compile everything you've learned into a shared document that you can use as a portfolio to share with future employers after this course you move on to the next phases of the project life cycle and so will your office screen project enjoy [Music] first things first to set up a project for success and to make your job easier you want to figure out what needs to be done before you actually get started you need to define exactly what your goals and deliverables are so that you'll be able to tell your team members what to do you need a clear picture of what you're trying to accomplish how you're going to accomplish it and how you know when it has been accomplished let's define project goals so that you can start to figure out what your project team needs to do to reach it a project goal is the desired outcome of the project it's what you've been asked to do and what you're trying to achieve for example your goal could be to improve the response time to customer inquiries via email by twenty percent the goal of your office screen project might be to increase revenue by five percent through a new service called plant pals that offers desk plans to top customers by the end of the year goals are important because they give you a road map to your destination without a clear goal in mind how can you know where to go or how to get there now one of the biggest differences between what makes a good goal and a not so good goal is how well it's defined meaning how clear and specific is the goal if the goal is your destination are you confident you'll know when you've arrived the examples i mentioned before to improve the response time to customer inquiries via email by twenty percent and to increase the office screen revenue by five percent are two well-defined goals because they tell you what you're trying to achieve but wait there's more these goals also tell you how to do what you've been asked to do in this case it's via email through a new service offering and that's not all these schools clarify the goal even further by saying to improve by twenty percent and increase by five percent now we know where we're going well-defined goals are both specific and measurable they give you a clear sense of what you're trying to accomplish really great goals have even more detail but i'll get to that soon when you start a project take time to review your goals and make sure they're well defined to do this you might need to get more information from your stakeholders talk to them about their vision for the project ask how this aligns to the company's larger goals and mission by the end of that conversation you and your stakeholders should agree to support the project goals in order to avoid running into issues later on here's an example from my own experience as a project manager our team have finished a new product feature our stated goal was to deliver an early version of this feature and collect user feedback when we delivered the feature to one of our key customers for user feedback the customer didn't have anyone available to try it out our team debated whether or not we had met our goal if we hadn't collected user feedback some felt that we hadn't achieved the stated goal while others thought we did the customer was satisfied with our team's ability to deliver a feature in the timeline stated but our internal team wasted valuable time going back and forth about it that said make sure that before you start your project you your stakeholders and your team are all clear on the project schools so that you know you are making the right kind of progress i'll teach you a process for how to do this coming up once you have the goals nailed down it's time to examine the project deliverables project deliverables refer to the tangible outcomes of the project in other words a deliverable is what gets produced or presented at the end of a task event or process take the goal to improve customer response time a deliverable for that goal could be the creation of email templates for responding to typical questions your office screen project goal to increase revenues could have two deliverables launching the plant service and a finished website that highlights the new kinds of plants being offered these are considered deliverables because they describe tangible outputs that show stakeholders how additional revenues will be generated there are all sorts of project deliverable examples a pretty common one is a report when a goal is reached you can visibly see the results documented in a chart graph or presentation deliverables help us quantify and realize the impact of the project just like needing well-defined goals you need well-defined deliverables for pretty much the same reasons deliverables are usually decided upfront with the stakeholders or clients involved in the project they hold everyone accountable and are typically a big part of achieving the goal make sure to ask questions about what the deliverable should be and have everyone share the vision and expectations of the deliverables so you're all on the same page coming up you'll practice the art of defining your goals even further by following the smart method enjoy i already mentioned that goals should be specific and measurable the smart method to evaluate goals adds three more considerations for success be attainable be relevant and be time-bound put them all together and what do you have smart goals as an entry-level project manager you may or may not be setting the project's main goals but you will need to be able to identify and clarify them as needed and that's where the smart method can be a valuable tool let's take a closer look at each term as i've already mentioned if your goal is not specific you'll have trouble figuring out how long it should take to complete and whether or not you've accomplished it for example if the goal was simply to improve customer service response time that's not very specific it does tell you what you want to achieve in general but it doesn't say anything else if you've improved response time by one percent is that enough if after five years response time finally goes up is that enough how about if only half of your staff improves their response times but the other half stays the same specific goals should answer at least two of the questions i'm about to ask what do i want to accomplish why is this a goal does it have a specific reason purpose or benefit who is involved and who is the recipient employees customers the community at large where should the goal be delivered and finally to what degree in other words what are the requirements and constraints next we want to set goals that are measurable meaning we can determine that they were objectively met measuring is not only a way for people to track progress but also a tool to help people stay motivated you can tell if a goal is measurable by asking how much how many and how will i know when it's accomplished sometimes the success of a goal can be measured with a simple yes or no did you learn how to play guitar yes or no you will need to measure most of the goals you have with metrics metrics are what you use to measure something like figures or numbers for example if your goal was to run a 5k 5 kilometer race then distance in kilometers is your metric at office screen the project goal is to increase revenue by 5 in this case revenue is symmetric lastly consider benchmarks or points of reference to make sure you're choosing accurate metrics for instance if your overall goal is to increase revenue you can look at last year's data as a benchmark for deciding how much to increase revenue this year if last year's revenue increased by three percent then an increase by five percent in a booming economy would be a reasonable goal for this year okay so the goal is specific and measurable but is it attainable can it be reasonably reached based on the metrics typically you want goals that are a little challenging to encourage growth otherwise what's the point of the goal if nothing's going to change however you don't want it to be too extreme or you'll never reach it you'll have failed before you even start it aim to find a balance between the two extremes for example let's take the goal to run a 5k say you regularly run 2.5 kilometers three times a week an attainable goal would be to go from running 2.5 kilometers to running five kilometers within four weeks an unattainable goal might be earning first place in a 5k i mean it could happen but it's not likely especially if you've never run a race before but how can you know if a goal is attainable if it's unfamiliar a clue to helping you figure out if your goal is attainable is to ask how can it be accomplished break down the goal into smaller parts and see if it makes sense going from 2.5 kilometers to 5 kilometers over 4 weeks means increasing your distance by a little over half a kilometer each week that's not so bad use the same process on your office screen project goal businesses usually conduct quarterly reviews so let's assume the increase is expected to occur over the course of a year for four quarters in order to meet the goal you need to see an increase of at least one percent each quarter seems pretty reasonable to me what wouldn't be reasonable is setting a goal of increasing revenues by 50 percent or 100 unless your research showed that business was improving that quickly your goal is specific measurable and attainable now let's see if it's relevant in other words does it make sense to try and reach the school think about how the goal lines up with other goals priorities and values ask whether the goal seems worthwhile does the effort involved balance out the benefits does it match your organization's other needs and priorities everyone from the client and the project team and the people who will ultimately use the product need to feel like the goal is worth supporting also consider the timing both the amount of time the project will take as well as the larger economic and social context can have big impacts there might be a budget to complete the project now but will the company be able to sustain the project over time is there an audience that will continue to use the product or service once it's delivered once you've got the answers to these questions you should have a clear goal to help steer the project if you still don't feel confident about the project schools keep digging it's okay to ask questions if you have doubts communicate your concerns with the project senior stakeholders and your direct supervisor if you have one they should be able to address some of your concerns so that you can feel confident about moving forward all right if you're feeling good about the project being relevant and attainable and you've made sure it's measurable and has the specifics to keep you and your project team focused the final item on the checklist is to make sure it's time bound time bound means your goal has a deadline deadlines give you a way to track your progress otherwise you may never reach your goal or never even get started time and metrics often go hand in hand because time can also be used as a metric making your goal time bound gives you a way to break down how much needs to be accomplished over time for example if you need to increase revenues by the end of the year you can break down how much you need to increase each quarter month and week and there you have it specific measurable attainable relevant and time-bound a nearly foolproof method to create and evaluate your project goals and you know what they say work smarter not harder [Music] simply put your project scope includes the boundaries of a project the way we define it at google is an agreed upon understanding as to what is included or excluded from a project scope helps ensure that your project is clearly defined and mapped out that means knowing exactly who the project will be delivered to and who will be using the end result of the project you also need a firm understanding of the project's complexity is it straightforward with an easily manageable list of tasks or will it require extensive research multiple rounds of approvals and a large-scale production process that will take years to complete scope also includes the project timeline budget and resources you'll need to clearly define these so that you can make sure you're working within those boundaries and what's actually possible for the project to work poorly defined scope or major changes to your scope can cause changes to the budget timeline or even final outcome of the project let's look at the scope of your office screen project as an example as a reminder the new plant pals service offers customers small low maintenance plants like cacti and leafy ferns that they can place on their desks customers can order them online or from a print catalog an office screen will ship the plants straight to the customer's work address things to consider for your scope then might be whether or not to provide replacement plans which customer segments will be offered the service whether or not the online catalog is an app a website or both and how to ensure customers can purchase from the online catalog whether by phone pc mac iphone or android you might also consider the dimensions of the paper catalog and whether it needs to be in color or black and white and on what kind of paper now how do you actually figure out the scope of your project it's simple talk to your sponsors and stakeholders understand what their goals are and find out what is and this is really important what is not included in the project we've covered a number of different ways to help you determine scope here are a few more helpful questions to add to the list where did the project come from why is it needed what is the project expected to achieve what does the project sponsor have in mind who approves the final results now you really be set as for timing defining project scope should happen during the initial planning stage you want to start figuring out the scope early on so that everyone can agree to the same set of expectations it will help mitigate the risk of big changes down the line although you can always adjust the scope as planning continues if you need to once you understand your project scope you want to document all the details so that anyone can refer back to it throughout the life cycle of the project we'll talk about some best practices for that at the end of this module let's recap a clearly defined scope describes all the details of a project and regulates what can be added or removed as it progresses while it's ultimately the project manager's responsibility to monitor the project and make sure all the work and resources fall within its scope team members and stakeholders can be encouraged to do their part by focusing on the tasks that are the most important to reaching the project school tasks that are included in the project and contribute to the project's overall goal are considered to be in scope tasks that aren't included are called out of scope it's your job as a project manager to set and maintain firm boundaries for your project so that your team can stay on track for example if the copywriters or designers of the plant pals catalog came up with the idea to expand the type of plants being offered to top customers you would have to point out that their suggestion is out of scope and would take extra time and add to your budget costs as you progress through the project life cycle you're going to encounter unexpected challenges or have new details or ideas brought to your attention that could impact your project's success changes growth and uncontrolled factors that affect a project scope at any point after the project begins are referred to as scope creep scope creep is a common problem and it's not always easy to control it's one that we struggle with on every single project it can happen on any project in any industry imagine you're working in a tech company and your project involves working with designers and engineers to update the language icon's design on a mobile keyboard app for a smartphone while the team is making the update they realize that the search icon and the voice input icon also need a design refresh these are very small features and while technically not in scope the team feels it would take minimal effort and provide lots of value so they go ahead and make the updates during a stakeholder review it's pointed out that there is a keyboard in english but no keyboards for other languages and the suggestion is made to design additional keyboards at this point the project scope is in danger of expanding from a fairly simple icon update to a complex rollout of multiple keyboard layouts adding the keyboards would impact the team's timelines causing the project to take longer to finish it would also impact resourcing because you would need to hire more people or existing team members would have to work overtime and it would increase the budget since the team did not anticipate costs for extra working hours or keyboard translations this is just one example of scope cream sometimes it's subtle just design one or two more icons or more obvious hey can you tack on designing keyboards for other languages by identifying scope creep and being proactive you protect your project and your project team to help you combat scope creep it's good to know that there are two major sources from which it comes external and internal external sources of scope creep are easier to recognize for example if you're working on a project with one main customer the customer might request changes or the business environment around you might shift or the underlying technology you're using might change while you can't control everything that happens there are some useful tips to keep in mind first make sure the stakeholders have visibility into the project you want them to know the details of what's going to be produced what resources are required how much it will cost and how much time it'll take also get clarity on the requirements and ask for constructive criticism of the initial product proposal it's important to get this information before any contracts are signed be sure to set ground rules and expectations for stakeholder involvement once the project gets started come to an agreement on each of your roles and responsibilities during execution and status reviews once you're clear on the project scope come up with a plan for how to deal with out of scope requests agree on who can make formal change requests and how those requests will be evaluated accepted and performed and finally be sure to get these agreements in writing this way you always have a documentation to point to if you a stakeholder or the customer have a disagreement down the line one of the leading causes of external scope creep is not being clear on the requirements before defining the scope and getting formal approval to move forward with the project this is where those specific immeasurable goals and deliverables come into play if the requirements aren't specific and if you haven't agreed on the project's processes deliverables and milestones then you're almost guaranteed to be dealing with scope creep once the project begins internal sources of scope creep are trickier to spot and harder to control this kind of creep comes from members of the project team who suggest or even insist on process or product changes or improvements it's possible that a product developer will justify a decision on the grounds of making the product better even though it's going to cost more or a team lead might decide that a certain process is more efficient without realizing the impact the change in process will have on other team members tasked with different parts of the project what you need to make clear to your team is that any change outside of the project scope comes off the bottom line threatens the schedule and increases risk there are no small impacts to project scope anytime a team member takes on an unplanned task more is lost than just the time spent working on that task it's your responsibility as the project manager to maintain the limits of the project the best defense is to know the details of your project in and out so you always prepared with the most appropriate response to a new idea or request let's recap monitor your project scope and protect it at all costs even the most minor change can be major risk to your project success coming up i'll tell you about the triple constraint model and how you can use it to help determine how your project changes affects scope stay tuned scope goes hand in hand with goal setting for example redefining the scope can change the goal and a revision of the goal can change the scope the concept of project scope is important throughout the project while your project will have its own specific goals the overall goal for you as the project manager is to deliver the project according to the scope agreements this includes delivering the project within the given deadline and the approved budget you'll quickly find that this is easier said than done as you progress through your project you will continually need to make compromises and weigh trade-offs as new challenges and changes and factors present themselves anytime a team member takes on an unplanned task more is lost than just the time spent working on that task in order to decide if a scope change is acceptable and what impact it will have project managers usually refer to the triple constraint model the triple constraint model is the combination of the three most significant restrictions of any project scope time and cost we've talked a bit about what scope is so let's focus now on time and cost time refers to the project schedule and deadlines cost includes the budget and it also covers resources and the people who will work on the project both time and budget have to be carefully managed alongside scope all three of these are linked you can't change one without having an impact on the others for example a decrease in cost means a change in time or scope an increase in time means a change in scope or cost or both understanding how changing one impacts the other two constraints is key it's important to consider what trade-offs you're willing to make as the project progresses to do this successfully you need a clear understanding of the project priorities you have to know what is most important when it comes to scope time and cost if there's a specific deadline that must be met then you'll need to limit any changes to the scope that might cause the project to go past the deadline if the product must look or function in a certain way then the requirements are a priority and you could justify changes in cost or time in order to meet the scope requirements but just because you can make a change that doesn't mean you necessarily should make a change and even though the limits of scope time and costs have been set you can still make changes if there's a good reason to do so don't worry you won't have to decide on these changes all by yourself if there are scope decisions that need to be made the project manager will likely need to consult with the project sponsor and stakeholders to get their approvals let's go through a few scenarios so you can get familiar with weighing the value of a trade-off and understanding the impacts of any changes in the first scenario a request has been made to improve the plant pals product features the director of product office green wants to use pots that indicate when the plants need to be watered making changes to the product is a scope change you know that you can't change the budget but you can extend the timeline so you can accept the scope change request and extend the timeline as long as the budget doesn't increase here's another possible a request has been made to reduce the budget without making any changes to the scope the final outcome of plan pal still needs to look and function as you all originally agreed if you're going to reduce the budget and keep the scope you may need to extend the timeline okay here's another scenario there's a request to tighten up the timeline and finish early but you can't increase the budget in order to do this you need to make changes to the scope like limiting shipping options doing this will give your project more time because you'll have one less shipping contract to negotiate the end result won't be exactly what was originally agreed on but it means getting it out earlier as requested and within budget let's try one more in this last scenario the director of product informs you that the project deadline must be met it's the most important thing in this case your stakeholders are willing to increase the budget and make any necessary changes to the scope requirements in order to meet the deadline in the end it's all about prioritizing which element of the triangle matters the most in the project are you getting the hang of trade-offs keeping in mind scope time and cost as you manage your project will help you navigate different conditions while still achieving your goals remember change is inevitable when managing projects and understanding this framework can set you up to plan and communicate accordingly so your project will secede [Music] many people think the time to decide if a project is successful is when you've produced the final outcome and presented it to the client that's getting close delivering the final result of your project to the client or user it's what's called a project launch you finish building or creating a project the tasks are completed and the deliverables are done you've hit your goal the project is successful and consider complete in that sense but does it work well did it achieve your desire outcome the real deciding factor of project success is when you put the final outcome to the test landing is when you actually measure the success of your project using the success criteria established at the outset of the project this is a crucial part of goal setting that is often overlooked in the initiation phase for example think about taking a trip on an airplane it's not enough for the pilot to be able to get the plane off the ground to arrive safely at your destination they've got to know how to land your success has to continue beyond the point of delivering the final project you need to be able to measure whether the project functions as intended once it's put into practice let's take the example of your project plant pals you've managed to launch the new service with success the website has launched the catalogs have been printed and delivered orders have been received and revenue is starting to go up it will be easy to call this a win and move on but what happens if the customers are unhappy once the plants are delivered what if the plants start to wilt and discolor after a couple of weeks just because launching the project and getting it out the door looks like success on paper that doesn't mean the project has managed to land for most projects a launch itself isn't a meaningful measure of success it's what comes after the launch that really counts launches are only a means to an end and looking beyond the launch is important to ensure the launch achieves your overall goals if you start off looking beyond the launch to the landing you're more likely to get where you're trying to go since landing is a concept and not a finite definition it's important to define what a successful landing looks like for a particular project luckily we have a way to measure and help you ensure the success of your project it's called success criteria and if you can manage to follow it through the life cycle of your project you'll ultimately have a smooth landing the success criteria includes all the specific details of your goals and deliverables and it can be a guide so you know whether you've accomplished what you set out to do success criteria will set standards for how your project will be judged [Music] at the beginning of the project you define goals and deliverables that are measurable meaning that you can determine if they were met similarly you need to define success criteria that can also be measured so you'll know whether they were met the success criteria will tell you whether or not the project as a whole was successful they are the specific details of your goals and deliverables that tell you whether you've accomplished what you set out to do they are the standards by which the project will be judged once it's been delivered to stakeholders and customers defining success criteria also clarifies for your team what they're trying to accomplish beyond just launching something to users is it to increase customer satisfaction with the service so they can continue to purchase more products enhance an existing feature to retain customers depending on the project the answers will be different but it's important that a team is aligned and working towards a shared goal sometimes forcing the conversation and clarifying what the end result looks like can bring to like questions and areas of disagreement there isn't a set process for determining success criteria but i'll break down a couple of key points to consider remember the measurable part of your smart goals one of the questions to ask when making your goals measurable is how will i know when it is accomplished the same question applies to your project how will you know when it's done only in this case you want to ask how will i know when it's successfully accomplished you can measure to determine your project success in a similar way to measuring a goal so go through your project goals and deliverables review the scope and identify the measurable aspects of your project these are going to be any of the metrics used in the goals and deliverables along with your budget and schedule details another thing you'll need to do is get clarity from stakeholders on the project requirements and expectations this is key there are lots of people involved with any project and that means lots of ideas about what success looks like to each person you want to ask questions such as who ultimately says whether or not the project is successful what criteria will be measured to determine success what's the success of this project based on once you've collected clarifying information document and share all of it so that you your team and your stakeholders can refer to it later let's try creating success criteria with the office screen project for example the goal is to increase revenue by 5 by the end of the year one of the deliverables is a website with a gallery of the different plan selections that are offered it's not enough just to make a list of criteria you need a process for measuring success from start to finish throughout the entire project life cycle this way you can make adjustments and ensure success by the time you're ready to land there are many metrics you can use and for some products it will make sense to use more than one the metrics you choose should be as closely aligned to your project's goal as possible for example happiness metrics measure user attitudes and satisfaction or perceived ease of use and you can measure these through surveys for the plant pals project we may consider a customer satisfaction rate of 85 percent within the first three months of launching as a way to measure success you can also consider customer adoption and engagement metrics along with more business-oriented metrics that track things like sales and growth adoption refers to how the customer uses and adopts a product or service without any issues engagement refers to how often or meaningful customer interaction and participation is over time adoption metrics might include launching a new product to a group of users and having a high amount of them used or adopted engagement metrics might include increasing the daily usage of a design feature or increasing orders and customer interactions using the office screen example tracking how many customers initially sign up for and use the plant pal service is an adoption metric tracking how many customers renew their plant pal service post about it or share feedback or engagement metrics once you've defined the metrics that you'll be measuring think about how you track these metrics evaluate which tools can help you collect the data you need to ensure you're staying on track for example if you're measuring business metrics like revenue consider tracking that in a spreadsheet or dashboard where you can easily spot gaps and trends if you're measuring customer satisfaction you can think of a way to incentivize customers to participate in regular email surveys and create a system to measure their responses when they participate you can also utilize your project management tools to check on efficiency metrics like what percent of tasks are completed or whether the project is progressing alongside the planned timelines it's smart to measure success with your team as a project or product is in progress for example you can hold a project review once a month have team members complete task checklist by certain deadlines or whole live feedback sessions with your users or customers there are many different ways to measure success the key is to pick the methods that work best for your success criteria it's a good idea that along with each success criteria on your list to also include the methods for how success will be measured how often it's measured and who's responsible for measuring it share your success criteria document with your stakeholders and ask if they agree with how the project success will be determined it's also a good idea to have the appropriate stakeholders sign off on the success criteria this way everyone will be clear on who is responsible for which tasks and you all thoroughly understand what the path to success entails keep this documentation visible throughout the duration of the project and clearly communicate it with your team every step of the way they're the ones who will be attempting to meet all the different requirements so don't keep them in the dark about what they're supposed to do or how they're supposed to do it if done correctly defining your success criteria should create greater alignment within the team and give everybody better visibility into how to achieve success clarity around success metrics also helps teams prioritize which efforts are most impactful to their users defining project success is a complex but crucial part of project management with more and more practice this process will come more natural to you in the planning stages and throughout your project congratulations on finishing this video in the google project management certificate access the full learning experience including job search help and start to earn your official certificate by clicking on the icon to view the next course in this video click here and subscribe to our channel to learn more from google career certificates

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Keywords: Grow with Google, Career Change, Tech jobs, Google Career Certificate, Google Career Certificates, Job skills, Coursera, Certification, Google, professional certificates, professional certificate program, Project management, Project management 101, Project management fundamentals, Project manager, Program management, Agile, Agile project management, Scrum, Project planning, project scope, smart goals, scope creep, setting smart goals, smart goal

Id: 1eiTXSkKFtE

Length: 42min 43sec (2563 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021