Setting Smart Objectives

Objectives help you plan​

Align priorities – Focus on what matters​

• Objectives define what you, your team and the business will achieve.
• They help you focus effort on the things that matter and provide a plan of execution to follow.
• Each Objective represents a problem that must be solved. It is your job to work out how to solve that problem and deliver the solution.
• Objectives describe the specific result or outcome to be achieved, the specified timeframe for delivery and the monthly milestones along the way allowing progress to tracked and reported on.
• Each Objective is broken down into the necessary steps (i.e. activities) that need to be taken for it to be achieved which is the plan you will follow.
• Objectives create a culture of accountability and allow you demonstrate your achievements and celebrate success.

A Good Objective​

• A good Objective satisfies the S.M.A.R.T. rules:​
  • Specific​
  • Measurable (in terms of outcomes)​
  • Assigned (it is owned by a person who is accountable for it)​
  • Resourced properly (so it can realistically be achieved)​
  • Time-based​
• In Kendo you must follow the SMART methodology when you create an objective
• Objectives can be broken down into what needs to happen for them to be achieved and these are called Activities.
• You may not be the person to undertake all of the activities, so it is possible for you to cascade all or parts of this objectives to others to do. You are still accountable for the objective, but you have broken the business problem into pieces and asked others to solve the part given to them.
• These cascaded objectives become the objective of the person or team they have been cascaded to.
• Objectives that have been created by an individual can be linked up to a higher level objective where they directly contribute to its success.

Writing an Objective – An Example​

• An objective must begin with a verb i.e. an action descriptor eg: deliver, rollout, create etc. You are solving a problem which means you must be “doing” something.
• An objective must define the measurable outcomes of the action eg: deliver training in MS Teams to 100% of the employees
• An objective comes with an assignment of accountability eg: owned by Tim.
• In looking at the objectives’ owner, an assessment must be made to see that Tim has access to enough resources to deliver the outcome ie he has the ability or access to people with the abilities and a budget if required
• The objective must state the time lines by which the outcome is delivered eg 30 June 2022

The Five Questions to ask when Writing an Objective (with hints from the previous example)​

1. What activity is needed to the fix the business need or problem you are addressing? (hint: delivering training)​
2. What defined outcomes would meet this need or solve this problem? (hint: 100% of employees trained )​
3. Who is going to own this? (hint: Tim)​
4. Does the objective owner have access to the resources needed to deliver the outcomes? (hint: he has a training budget and the support of the ELT)​
5. When does it need to happen by? (hint: by June 30)​

Creating Objectives​

• There are two ways to create objectives
  • You can create your own objective and send it to your manager for agreement. Your manager gets to agree or suggest changes.
  • Your manager can create an objective and assign it to you, or they can cascade a task from one of their objectives to you. You get to agree or suggest changes.
• Upfront clarity is important before creating an objective so use the background text box to explain your thinking. It helps others understand the context.
• Creating objectives is a collaborative process between you and your manager with you both being able to edit  the objective so you can easily reach agreement.

Who owns Objectives​

• Objectives are always owned by one individual and appear in the individual’s My Objectives page, but depending on how they contribute to the business, they may also form part of:
  • An organisation’s Corporate business plan
  • A team’s business plan
• Objectives can be assigned to the organisation’s business plan and contribute directly to achieving the strategy for the organisation
• Objectives can be assigned at the team business plan level and describe how the team mission will be delivered

How to add an Objective

• Your individual objectives (agreed, pending and draft) all appear on the My Objectives page of both the ‘Plan+Do’ and ‘Talent’ spaces
• To add a new objective ensure the correct Financial year is selected. This is the financial year during which the objective will start.
• Then select add objective

Add an Objective – Defining the Problem being Solved​

Defining your Objective

• Objective Owner: When creating an objective, you need to nominate who will own and be accountable for this objective
  • Me  – then select For the relevant team (based on which teams you are a member of)
  • Another person
    • If you are a people manager you can assign the objective to your direct reports
    • If you are a business plan owner you can assign to anyone, including multiple people- If assigning to multiple people you can determine who will manage the objective (ie who will complete the pulse check for that objective)
  • Other Teams– Select from any team you have visibility of (including any team you are a member of)
• For more guidance on assigning objectives, see the Cascading and Assigning guide

• Visible to: Nominate who can see this objective. This allows people to link their objectives to it. Some business objectives are commercially sensitive and are not for sharing:
  • For your own objective select whether it is visible to  – only me and my manager, my direct reports, everyone
  • For objectives assigned to other people – private to the owner and their manager, direct reports or everyone
  • For team objectives – team members and their team leaders, team leaders only, everyone in the organisation For corporate business plan objectives – the Board, my direct reports and the Board, or everyone
  • For Board objectives – visibility will be the Board members

Objectives added to the corporate business plan

• Depending on your access permission you can select whether this objective is:
  • An objective, or a Team Business Plan Objective,
  • Is this objective a Corporate Business Plan Objective, a Normal objective, or a Board objective (relevant for Board members only)

• Only the CEO (or someone who has been granted permission by the Kendo Administrator) has the option to create a Corporate Business Plan objective directly to the corporate business plan page
• The Corporate Business Plan describes how the strategy will be delivered and measures the success of its execution
• They are the highest level of objective and relate directly to achieving the business priorities and for this reason they get reported on in an executive summary of business performance
• Objectives added to the organisation’s corporate business plan need to have an owner. This can be anyone in the organisation
• Objectives added to the Corporate Business Plan will also show on the objective owner’s My Objectives page and the Corporate Business Plan

Objectives assigned to a Team

• Objectives can be assigned to a Team as either an normal objective, owned by someone on the team, or as a Team business plan objectives owned by someone on the team
• The Team Business Plan objectives describe how the team’s mission will be delivered and measures the success of its execution. See the guide on Creating Great Teams for more information on how to create teams.
• Individuals may work on other objectives relevant to their role on the team that do not constitute team business plan objectives. These describe the priorities for the individual but are not defined one of the team’s key priorities.
• Anyone can create an objective for the team, however the team leader will approve all objectives for the team. Only the team leader can choose to add an objective as a team business plan objective. They will determine whether this objective constitutes a key priority for the team and whether the team’s success will be measured through the achievement of this objective
• Any team member with access to the team business plan will be able to view those team business plan objectives
• They will be able to align their own objective to a team business plan objectives to ensure that its clear who will contribute to and deliver each of the team objectives
• Objectives selected to appear on the Team Business Plan will also appear on the objective owner’s My Objectives page
• Team members can assign an objective to a team from their objectives page or from the team business plan objectives page – this means assigning it to the team leader initially to accept. They choose whether they will own it or can make someone else accountable for it, and will also determine whether it is a team business plan objective

​defining the problem to be solved

• State your objective: starting with a verb describe the outcome to be achieved.
  • Tips:
    • Write a clear, unambiguous simple sentence
    • Begin with an action, eg deliver, roll out, create
    • Clearly define a single outcome of the objective
  • Examples:
    • Reduce capital expenditure by 10%
    • Increase sales from $8M to $10M
    • Reduce staff turnover by 5%
    • Provide some Background or context to the objective (why is it important? How has it come about? )
• Next will take you to complete the Essential Characteristics of the objective

​essential characteristics of the objective

• Select the Strategic Pillar your objective aligns to. This ensures there is strategic alignment across the organisation.
• Link your objective to a senior objective that it contributes to. This could be one of your manager’s or someone else’s objective
• Contribution   refers to the level of impact the achievement of your objective will have on the objective it is linked to. It is a qualitative not numeric assessment
• Characteristics of Objective
  • Effort is the amount of your time, other people time, money and other resources needed to successfully achieve the objective’s deliverables. It is a qualitative and relative assessment
  • Complexity covers the project clarity, size, constraints, dependencies, chance of change, risk, stakeholder engagement and capabilities required. It is a qualitative and relative assessment.
• Now add a start and due date for the objective

milestones and measurement

• Decide how you will measure the success of the objective: 
  • This can be done by setting a numerical target with numerical milestones to show progress. As numerical outcome is typically dependent on key drivers these can be added as activities that you need to undertake.
  • Some objectives are projects with activities where the activities need to be undertaken for the successful completion of the project. Measurement of these objectives is by the level of completion and the milestones will show the steppingstones along the way.

​Objectives Measured as % Project Complete

• When objectives are measured through progress of a project (with one or more activities) they are measured in terms of the percentage of the objective that is complete. This is based on a weighted calculation of the progress of each of the individual milestones.
• The project will have a start and due date and this is based on the start and due dates of the activities.
• Determine how frequently you will review this objective with a pulse (monthly, quarterly, ½ yearly, or based on milestone due dates)
• Define the significant activities to be achieved in order to deliver the project outcome. Milestones are the completion of each activity that often need to be finished for the next activity to start.
• Allocate a percentage weighting for each activity, indicating the importance of this activity in achieving the overall project deliverable
• A Gantt chart will show your project plan
• Send to your manager for agreement. They can agree or suggest changes.

Objectives Measured by a Numerical Target​

• Objectives with numerical measures  have a numerical target like currency, percentage or a number.
• Enter the start and due date for the objective, it is often for the financial year, but it can be for any period.
• Target frequency – this is the frequency with which the target is measured (monthly, quarterly, ½ yearly)
• Pulse Check frequency – This is how frequently you will review this objective with a pulse check (monthly, quarterly, ½ yearly). The pulse check frequency cannot be more frequent than the target frequency.
• The following line enters the summary data for your objective
  • Select the time period for the measurement of your objective ie Each month/year
    • Is it a monthly target to be met every month that resets to zero at the start of the new month eg a monthly customer satisfaction rating of 90% or a target of less than 5 customer complaints per month (note the monthly target is only available when the frequency of the target is set to monthly)
    • Is it an accumulating yearly target such as year to date eg annual sales target or year to date profit  
  • Do you need to meet or exceed, stay below, increase or decrease with respect to the target number to achieve success
  • If you select increase or decrease you can add a starting value (from) and a target value (to) allowing you to measure your progress from a current to a desired number (eg reduce call centre waiting from 7 mins to 5 mins or increase number of govt clients from 5 to 10)
  • Select the numerical unit type ($, % or #) and target value ie the target number you’re measuring against
  • Enter the measure – this describes what is being measured – eg complaints, waiting time, customer satisfaction. This line will describe your objective as it will appear on your dashboard

set Milestones for Numerical Measures

• Equal milestones for the period are automatically created (depending on the frequency of the target chosen)
• Or choose to manually enter different specific monthly milestones for each period
• The chart shows:
  • the monthly, quarterly or half yearly milestones across the year depending on the time period chosen for the target
  • the cumulative milestones across the year if you selected a yearly time period for the target
• Does the numerical outcome require activities?– You can add activities that represent drivers to your objective
• Simply add activities with start and end dates for each one
  • Note: updating performance of the objective will involve updating both numerical actuals as well as activity progress.
• Send to your manager for agreement. They can agree or suggest changes

​ Responsibilities as Objectives​

• For some people a major part of their work may not relate to business objectives but an accountability for a certain function within the business. This accountability is documented as a Responsibility.
• Responsibilities are defined in your Role and can be selected to be measured from this area of Kendo.
• Once selected to be measured, this will appear in your Draft Objectives as an objective
• You can add activities that represent drivers to this objective
• Simply add activities with start and end dates for each one
  • Note: updating performance of this objective will involve updating both the pulse check and the individual activity progress.
• Complete the detail of the objective and send it to your manager for agreement
• If you change the Responsibility, this will be reflected in your Role once your manager agrees​

Objective Agreement

• Send the objective to your manager for agreement. They can agree or suggest changes.
• For Corporate Business plan objectives, only Executives or the CEO with access to the corporate business plan can create these objectives. If the objective owner is the CEO they can add the objective and also mark as agreed simultaneously.
• The CEO can then send the Corporate Business Plan and objectives to the Board Chair for final agreement. The Board Chair can suggest changes to individual objectives or approve the full plan
• If objective is added after the Chair approves the Corporate Business Plan then the chair is notified and they will re-approve the plan

Objective Agreement Status

• Agreed – these objectives have been agreed by your manager. Progress and pulse checks can be updated once objectives are Agreed. They can also be cascaded or assigned to others. Agreed objectives can be edited, but in most cases, will need to be sent for re-approval to the manager
• Pending – these objectives have been created and sent to either the objective owner (if created by someone else) or the manager (if created by the objective owner) for agreement. Pulse checks and progress updates cannot be done on these objectives until they are agreed
• Draft – these objectives are either:
  • incomplete (not all fields have been completed) and have not yet been agreed. All mandatory fields need to be completed before the objective can be agreed, or,
  • sent for agreement but the manager did not accept the objective. They appear as ‘Draft’ objectives for the owner to revise and resend for agreement

Editing Agreed Objectives

• Agreed objectives can be edited by the owner, but in some cases, will need to be sent for re-approval to the manager
• Objectives can be edited and saved without re-approval if any of the following fields are edited (otherwise re-approval is required from the manager):
  • Write your objective
  • Background
  • Effort or Complexity
  • Visible to
• For Project objectives, Activities can be added at any time, even after approval. There will be a prompt on the objectives page to add activities, where no activities have been included in the objective

• For any other edits, Send for Agreement.
• Or you can Revert to Draft if you’d like to continue working on the objective, or if not all mandatory fields have been completed, and send it for agreement later once complete

Copy Objectives

• Agree objectives can be copied to the next financial year at any time

• Select ‘Copy’ to copy all of the details of the existing objective, assigning a new end date in the following financial year.
• Once agreed with your manager, it will appear in the following financial year’s objectives

Closing Objectives

• Objectives can be closed if they are no longer relevant (ie a decision has been made that no further work will be done on this objective)
• Both the objective owner and the objective owner’s manager can close an objective.
• If a pulse is still outstanding, the objective owner is prompted to first complete a pulse.

• When closing an objective, you’ll be asked to provide a reason.
• If the manager closes the objective, they can elect to notify the objective owner, who will then receive a notification that their objective has been closed
• If the objective owner closes the objective the manager will receive a notification to approve the closing of the objective
• Closed objectives will no longer appear under ‘Agreed Objectives’ but will be visible when filtering ‘Closed objectives’ on the objective owner’s objectives. They will continue to be visible in the team objectives view but will be marked as closed
• The objective’s pulse history and actuals progress will continue to be accessible from within the objective

Deleting Objectives

• Objectives can only be deleted when they are in ‘Draft’ status
• Once an objective has been sent to the manager for agreement and is ‘pending’ it can no longer be deleted by the objective owner
• If the manager selects ‘don’t accept’, the objective will revert to ‘draft’. It can then be edited or deleted by the objective owner

• If the manager accepts an objective, the objective owner can only delete the objective by first selecting ‘edit’ and then ‘revert to draft’
• Select the objective from your ‘Draft’ objectives. The objective can then be deleted

Agree it, Own it, Track it​

• Objectives are agreed by the objective owner and their manager upfront. Whether created by them or assigned to them, they get to own it
• Once agreed, tasks can be added to plan to manage the detail of the steps required to complete the activities of an objective. See Objectives Reporting Guide for details on how to use the objectives Kanban board
• Regular Pulse Checks provide a structured update on the progress of the objective and can identify roadblocks where help might be needed​
• Pulse Checks help to get regular feedback, provide assistance in improving performance and provide input to determining an individual’s overall performance