Annual Goals - “Grading” the the real world

While there are no report cards or GPAs in industry, it doesn’t mean that you’re not evaluated! Normally, this takes place as a part of an annual cycle, where your manager (and sometimes also your peers) provide both performance ratings and feedback. How do they determine your rating? Not gonna lie, it can be influenced by their mood that day, what you did the week before, and the performance of your team as well as your individual contribution, but the process normally starts by establishing goals that are used as sort of a rubric for the evaluation.

Goals normally come in two flavors - performance goals and development goals. Performance goals measure how well you are doing your job currently, while development goals measure how well you’re preparing for the next job. Sometimes these are separate, sometimes they are managed in the same form. We’ll be establishing goals as part of this class as well, and they will play a part in your final evaluations.

Who establishes the goals varies from organization to organization, but frequently it is the employee who establishes them and they are reviewed by management and that is what we will be doing in this class -- you'll establish your own goals and I will review and approve them. There will also be a window to revise goals after the first sprint, when you may have a better feel for the class and your group(s). You need to pick 2-3 performance goals, and 2-3 development goals that capture what you want to achieve this semester.

Performance Goals

Performance goals should be measurements of how well you are doing your job. What is your job this semester? This job posting will help - for the purposes of this class, that’s your job. What are good performance goals? Think of things that made your project manager good (or bad!) and then think about how you quantify that. At all meetings on time? Reviews Trello and GitHub prior to meeting and provides actionable feedback? Helps prioritize tasks and suggests alternatives and workarounds if problems arise? The weekly meeting minutes will provide some documentation on your performance, as will the PM reviews completed by the teams.

Development Goals

Development goals should address where you want to build strengths. These are more reflective and should focus on the skills that you want to learn in this course. Do you want to become better at time management? Learn to resolve interpersonal conflict? Become more adept at GitHub and Trello organization? Learn how to motivate a team and hold them accountable? Your bi-weekly reflections will provide some documentation on progress towards these goals, as will the PM reviews completed by the teams.

SMART

Generally speaking, the more concrete your goals are the more objective your “grading” will be. One way to help assure that you are being judged objectively is to ensure that your goals are SMART:

Specific

You should clearly define goals in specific terms as to what is to be achieved. For example, saying “Provide detailed written recaps of each team meeting” is better than making a generic statement like “improve communication with team members.”

Measurable

Goals should be measurable, making it easy to track their achievement. For example, “Have each team member speak in every team meeting”. In addition to a numeric quantity, you can also measure goals through a change in behavior, quality, cycle, or processing time and efficiency.

Achievable

Goals should be achievable with a reasonable amount of effort. You should set realistic goals that can be achieved within the pre-determined timeframe with sincere efforts and available resources. “Ensure that my team gets an A” is probably a pretty risky goal to set.

Relevant

All goals should be pertinent to the main objective, which in this case is successfully managing the teams assigned and growing your own personal skillset.

Time-bound

You should clearly specify a timeframe to achieve goals. For example, if you want to increase productivity by 10%, you should also state whether it should be achieved in one year, two years or by a certain date. Obviously, we have a hard stop on the timeline for our experience, but you may want to accomplish one of your goals by the first sprint, or by mid semester.