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A project is simply a complex task that typically a team of individuals under the leadership of a project director is assigned and required to complete. There are literally thousands of projects done each year in all business settings and areas. Project management is studied in hundreds of papers.
A project approached correctly has a higher chance of succeeding and being more efficient, that is, a minimal amount of human, time, and dollar resources are spent on it. An important part of any project management is breaking up the project tasks into sub-goals and assigning the subgoals to sub-teams or individuals. The literature calls this goal-setting.
Good goal-setting is one key to a successful project. A person completing this presentation will have specific, easily applied metrics, allowing assessment of whether proper goal-setting has been achieved or if improvement is needed. The popular literature is vague on good goal-setting, using the mnemonic SMART, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely achievable.
In this lecture we give a more detailed description of good goal setting and avoid catchy terms like realistic which may have ambiguity. We present the ideas that sub-goals should:
- Lack ambiguity (mean the same thing to different people)
- Be executable to new staff without training
- Be atomic, that is, not being able to be broken up into further skills
- Challenging
- Achievable in a targeted amount of time. The project goal and subgoals should be recognizable and unambiguous.
The presentation introduces a 5-level hierarchy of sub-goals with level 5 sub-goals achieving success with more efficiency. Finally, we present experimental support for the goal-setting paradox: A good subgoal should be simultaneously both achievable and challenge the performers existing level.