When directing a small team it is important to structure the tasks to be performed. Goals should be easily understood by everyone and tasks broken down so that they appear achievable.
| Breaking down the task Goal analysis |
Nothing will be more demoralising for your team than setting them a task which seems impossible (the brick wall approach). Therefore it is important to define a task as a series of small but significant steps which seem realistic. As the person performs these broken-down steps he/she will still feel that something tangible has been accomplished, and the next step toward finishing will become clear. The brick wall approach will usually result in the task not being accomplished.
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| 1. The brick-wall approach | 2. Broken down-steps |
It is probable that as a team leader you will want to set goals for your team or project. One such goal may be "to improve communications amongst the team". Clearly there will be many different interpretations of this goal by different team members. Goal analysis seeks to remove this ambiguity.
Goal analysis should define an abstract goal in terms of concrete criteria, which when met will clearly demonstrate that the goal has been achieved. The criteria should be expressed in terms of actions or results rather than abstractions (which may be ambiguous). There are 5 steps:
At this stage the goal is an abstract thing, and it is important not to worry too much about how the goal is written down - a rough definition or idea will suffice.
Get team members to quickly describe what they understand by the goal. At this stage all suggestions should be noted down - no ideas are wrong or stupid. This is similar to the technique of brainstorming.
Sort out the ideas generated by 2 into an ordered or prioritised list which defines the goal. At this stage it may become apparent that some ideas are abstractions but are still important. If this is the case use steps 1 and 2 to clearly define these.
Make the team read and try to understand the list from step 3.
Ask the question - "When these all statements have been demonstrated to be true, will the goal have been achieved?" Test each statement in turn for relevance. If the answer is yes then the goal has been defined.
References
Mayer, R.F.: "Goal Analysis", (Kogan Page Company 1991)
Most recent revision 7 Feb 1997