I just finished a lesson plan two hours ago and did the lesson an hour ago . I had this fantastic activity with Skittles and the kids all moving around. I thought I would get a great review. Imagine how taken aback I was when I got confronted with “so what did you want them to learn? Have they learnt it?”. Sweaty palm time again.
I knew the why. My why was rock solid. But did I know exactly what I wanted them to learn? How would I have know they learnt it?
This, second article, tackles the most contentious part of Europeian project management: a systematic failure to appropriately frame objectives and measure success.
Smarter than your average bear
Mousebumples has already spoken about SMART objectives, but the message has yet to go through. We all know that we should be SMART but Presidential platforms are written hours after running and with a tight turnaround. There isn't enough time for two people to even scratch the surface. We can do much better.
We have done it better at times; even Falconias running with Modern Sin appended at the end of each ministry in his April 2010 Presidential run a goal and a promise:
We had Swakistek in Faster, Higher, Stronger define some objectives. But even then, an objective like “amplifying training” is not clear enough. Such a muddled verb (what does it even mean to “amplify” training?) is going to result in muddled methods. We need clear, verb-ed objectives and at first glance these might seem to fit the bill: increase the size of the volunteer force, recruit more for the active Navy, involve the EAAC in the strategic direction. However, these do not fit the bill. Better objectives are: “By term's end we would have one more shortlist-able candidate for Grand Admiral that hasn't already held the position”.
It's specific and clear. It's measurable. It's achievable, realistic and time-constrained.
Objectives like these give color to the why, it sharpens the why and it motivates. All Presidential campaigns should aspire to this. Want a more active Navy? Tell me why first, and then break it down into objectives that we can tick off.
By breaking it down into clear SMART objectives you understand your whale. You understand the scale of the task. A more active Navy might:
1) Have three more sailors who have participated in 60%+ of missions; or
2) Have conducted 3 more successful raids than last term
and many more. Try the above for an exercise, and post below your objectives for a more active Navy. Soon you come up with lots of different objectives and you're faced with a stark, political choice. A choice that the President is elected to make. Which of these objectives is more important, what does an active Navy mean for me? Does it mean more sailors or more missions? Only when you do this sort of analysis do your colors as a President truly show. Your priorities come apparent, your prejudices naked and philosophy scrutinized. The region's premier event deserves nothing less.
We Can Measure Anything
Because we don't enforce SMART objectives, it is difficult to know when we've done well. Take a more active Navy, for example. Well, you might have achieved that but I have no way of knowing. SMART objectives allow us to create success criteria. It allows us to evaluate what went well and what could have been done better.
If I didn't test my kids, if I didn't ask them questions, if I didn't probe them; how do I know if I've been successful or not?
The Navy is an easy thing to measure. But what about Culture? How can we measure success there? How can we measure civic pride? Engagement? Educators have decried that these intangibles are outside of normal standardized testing. But are they? On the same note, is civic pride or engagement in the region really something we can't measure the success of?
I present that the answer is no. We can measure the success of pride and engagement (to name a few). We Can Measure Anything.
We know pride when we see it, we know not-pride when we see it. When you next see your NS-friend, draw a t-chart: put “pride” on one side, and “not-pride” on the other. What things are you able to see and feel when you come into a region with pride? What about not-pride? “Well a region with pride doesn't let joke candidates interfere with things...” is one possibility. Your aim isn't to get the perfect measure of pride with a number, it is to know the characteristics, to know the proxies, to know the boundaries of what defines “pride”.
But you still get irritated! Numbers, numbers you need numbers! Ah, but that's not what measurement is really. Not really
In “How to Measure Anything” by Douglas Hubbard he smashes away at our misconceptions:
That's it! That's the real obstacle: uncertainty. You do not need, in NS or RL, a number. You just need a sufficient reduction in uncertainty so that the reduction is useful to you.
Ready, fire, aim
In Presidential campaigns, we often see begging to the electorate to let them fire the guns. There is so much thought given to how and the firing of the guns. It's the question, the first question, on everyone's lips. So much so that when the President enters office they want to see the guns smoke and thunder. They lavish praise on the visible and we all fetishize the process. This sick, erotic, fascination with the doing is almost phallic in nature leaves us exhausted at the end of the term and none the wiser whether we've made an impact. We get ready, fire, and then at the end of it all, we scramble to figure out what we were aiming at.
Let's change that, let's ready, aim, fire.
By hyanygo
