How to set goals that build alignment and accountability

Writing a good objective is hard. It requires capturing a huge amount of knowledge and context into a short phrase. Getting it wrong causes confusion, at best. At worst it can lead to projects going off track, unnecessary work, and important things being dropped.

Whether you are using OKRs, Headlining, or Agile Epics, a well-written objective communicates what your team is doing and why, builds alignment within and across teams, empowers autonomy, and builds accountability.

Here are some tips on writing objectives.

What and why, not how

A good objective communicates at a high-level what you are doing and why. It makes it clear to an appropriately knowledgeable person why certain actions are being performed, and why others are not.

But it is not overly prescriptive. Bad objectives read more like a to-do or a task. They lose track of the underlying reason for the objective. If the world changes or new information emerges, the final solution/approach may need to change. In particularly bad cases, it may be possible to complete the objective without actually accomplishing the original intent.

Bad: Ship a new version of the blog template

Good: Our blog is accessible for disabled readers and scores 100 on Lighthouse audits

Right-sizing

One of the hardest things about writing an objective is getting the size right. Too small and it won’t capture all the things that really need to happen. Too big and it won’t be useful at helping you make trade-offs.

When writing an objective think about how it will guide your actions. Does it provide enough focus to narrow the scope of what you might do? Or are there things that you want to do that aren’t captured? Perhaps it should really be two objectives.

Bad: Ensure success at enterprise customers

Good: Triple number of active teams per enterprise account

Are we there yet?

A good objective describes a desired outcome or state that needs to be reached. A bad objective leaves you uncertain about whether you actually accomplished the intended goal. When you’re in a crunch, and things are hard, it’s understandable that you’ll choose the most favorable interpretation of an objective. So make sure to be specific. Hold your future self accountable.

Bad: Increase sales leads

Good: Demos per week consistently exceeds five per rep

Who says?

Relatedly, a good objective is objective, i.e. it isn’t subjective, where success is open to interpretation. A reasonable person should be able to judge whether an objective has been completed or not, either through observation or measurement.

Bad: Frontend services are stable

Good: Externally measured uptime exceeds 99.99%

Cart before the horse

It’s obvious that the objectives that guide the operation of a working factory should be very different from those while it is being built. However, in knowledge work, things aren’t always so simple.

We’re often building systems and processes at the same time as solving a problem. So watch out for situations where you simply aren’t ready for an objective that would otherwise be reasonable.

Bad: Hire six new engineers a quarter

Good: All engineers have been trained on new hiring rubric and process

Objective writing is an art, not a science. I hope these guidelines are helpful.

The main thing to keep in mind is that you are communicating to multiple audiences: your team, your manager, your company, and your future self.

Think about what you want to accomplish, then put yourself in their shoes and imagine how they might misinterpret what you’ve written. Remember, these aren’t written in stone. As you are presenting and discussing your plans, sense and react, take time to refine and clarify your objectives.

Of course, running a good goal setting process is more than just writing the description. Range makes it easy to see the status of team objectives and helps you track all the work that contributes to your goal. And if your teams are struggling to identify and track good objectives, our friends at Epic Teams have a great coaching program that is worth checking out.

Originally published on the Range Blog at www.range.co/blog.

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Good objective, bad objective was originally published in Range on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Getting out more

Professionally, 2018 was focused on Range, the company I co-founded in 2017. It’s been a year of learning and growth, navigating the fabled rollercoaster of startup life; with ups and downs often occurring in the same day, sometimes simultaneously.

But, as with my previous years in review, this post is about life outside work and tech. It’s an intentionally rose-tinted reflection on the year, and will skip over the sleep deprivation, seemingly persistent chest infections that come from living with a preschooler, and other challenges.

We returned to California from a white Christmas in England, and went on our traditional New Years day hike out to Tennessee Valley.

In February, we celebrated Lyra’s third birthday on a windy day in Mission Bay.

She’s in preschool now, so nearly every weekday morning we cycled to school — the exception being rainy days when we used the running stroller, or bus.

Many a weekend was spent hanging out with Lyra’s BFF, Emerson, and her family.

In March, I attended The Lobby conference and we used the trip as an opportunity for a family vacation to the Big Island. Lyra loved playing on the beach, swimming in the pool, and was captivated by the dancing at a Luau.

In May, I returned to Wildflower for my first triathlon since Lyra was born. My parents were visiting and it turned out the logistics of getting parents plus toddler in-and-out of the race area was nearly as hard as the race itself.

Despite finishing the olympic course 15 minutes slower than my personal best, the race felt really good…. and then we were able to go wine tasting afterwards at a nearby vineyard 🙂

Over 4th July weekend, we went back to England again. This time to celebrate the arrival of my new nephew Rhys. The weather was amazing and I was happy that Tessa and Lyra got to experience a quintessential English summer. Let’s not talk about that England match 😦

Then in August, we took a trip to San Diego with Tessa’s sister and her family. Cousin time is becoming a top priority for us now the kids are getting bigger. We had fun visiting the zoo and Legoland, and loved the SoCal beach — though we all got horribly sunburned.

The rest of the summer and early autumn were a daze of birthday parties, trips to the Exploratorium, playgrounds, classes, and walks.

I had set myself a 350 mile running goal for the second year in a row, and for the second year I didn’t hit it. Though I got closer this year, hitting 315 miles.

Several bad chest colds (preschoolders!), wildfire smoke, and a couple of injuries set me back several weeks, and then it was hard to build the miles back given my ability to only run once or twice a week.

I read, or listened, to 24 books over the year: a mix of business, psychology, and sci-fi. Highlights were the Three-Body trilogy, and learning more about marketing in Crossing the Chasm and Play Bigger.

November saw the largest wildfires in California history and for several weeks the bay area was a thick blanket of smoke. We were reasonably well-prepared from last year, with masks and air-purifiers, but the air quality in our apartment was still poor and a cold Lyra already had turned into a mild case of pneumonia.

Luckily, we were able to escape to Seattle for Thanksgiving where I worked remotely for the week and we appreciated the clean air.

A big change to our weekly schedule this year was the introduction of date nights. With a pre-arranged babysitter, Tessa and I would go out for a meal, play board games in my office, or do activities around the city. (Highly recommended forcing function for other parents out there.)

To end the year my family came out to California. We celebrated Christmas in San Francisco then headed down the coast to Santa Cruz for New Year.

Happy New Year and good luck for 2019.

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2018 Highlights was originally published in Writing by Dan Pupius on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Micromanaging and tightly controlling your team will disempower them and erode initiative taking.

This post was originally published on Range.

Last week I was talking to an engineering leader who had been promoted to a manager of managers, let’s call him Isaac. Isaac was finding that his new role kept him further from the day-to-day work and that he had less visibility into what was happening. A few months into this new role he no longer knew how to tell whether his teams were on track and he was starting to get anxious.

Isaac felt that he had been a good manager. He kept tabs on all the tasks his team were juggling, could see which code changes were stalled or high risk, and was CC’d on nearly every email between his team and others. He could easily sense how individual contributors were feeling, was always there to help move projects forward when necessary, and was proud of his ability to act as a protective umbrella for his team.

But now he was responsible for 30 people and he couldn’t keep up. On some days, he started to feel like his teams were messing up and that he needed to take charge, seize control, and get everything in order through shear force of will. On other days he felt like he was drowning.

I’m pretty sure every leader has felt this way at one time or another. This anxiety is completely natural, but it is also when you are most at risk of falling into the trap of becoming a micromanager.

At its root, micromanagement is driven by fear:

• fear of loss of control
• fear of uncertainty and the unknown
• fear of failure
• fear of irrelevance

When someone becomes a micromanager, you’ll see them start to schedule more meetings, ask for more frequent reports and status updates. They’ll take on more and more things themselves, they’ll start working longer hours, and will be late to that useless meeting they scheduled. They’ll become more critical and demanding.

It’s easy to dislike them for what they’ve become, but can you feel their pain and their fear?

So, if you’re like Isaac, how do you avoid falling into this pattern of reaction where you want to seize control and take on everything yourself?

What, not how

Try to distance yourself from the “how” of the work. Be ok letting people figure it out for themselves, even if they do it differently to how you would. Focus your attention on outputs and results. If you’re asked for feedback or help, approach it as a coaching opportunity.

Fail gracefully

Failure is necessary for learning and growth. Your role as a leader is to let people fail safely, so they can learn without causing damage to themselves or the business. Think about the “guardrails” that will allow people to be autonomous and to move fast, but without breaking things (too badly).

Choreograph communication

If you don’t know what’s happening, it’s likely that other people don’t either. Design a cadence of communication that serves both your needs and the needs of the team, so everyone benefits and the effort isn’t duplicative.

Skip level 1:1s

Some people feel that having 1:1s with your reports’ reports can disempower them. If you play it wrong that’s certainly a possibility. For example, ad hoc meetings might signal you are worried or that something bad is about to happen.

Instead, clearly state the objective of skip level 1:1s, make them regular and predictable. Use them to learn how your managers are doing, get more insight into the day-to-day work, and use them as an opportunity to provide mentoring.

Find an outlet

Management is a different discipline than the one you worked on early in your career. It’s understandable for you to miss the comfort of getting your hands dirty and doing some real work. But if you’re not careful you can accidentally find yourself stepping on people’s toes, undermining other leaders, or being seen as a meddler.

Instead, find an area off the critical path. Perhaps some experimental work or exploration into new infrastructure. One of my managers would hack on spreadsheets and automate his workflow, partially as a way to scratch that itch.

Breathe

And finally, remember to breathe. Deeply.

Subconscious drives and fears impact us daily. Breathing connects you with your body, calms your nerves, and can help you be present to the underlying anxiety, allowing you to think more rationally.

In closing, I want to note that the alternative to micromanagement isn’t absenteeism. In an attempt to avoid being the thing they hate, new managers can sometimes skew too far the other way and be too hands-off. The tactics we’ve discussed here should help you sense into your team’s health and operations, so that you know when it’s the right time to get involved and what questions to ask, when you do.

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Leadership is knowing when to let go was originally published in Range Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.