Quarterly goals: a development path or a carrot for a donkey?

The system of quarterly reports is almost elementary, if you ignore the fact that it is effective.
Lee Iacocca, Career Manager

At the beginning of each quarter, I send 4 invitations to the rally, one for each of the team leaders of my team. This one-hour meeting, perhaps the most important of all, which happens in our quarter. The questions we discuss and the goals we set will affect the development of the employee, the project and the company.

There was a time when I perceived quarterly conversations as a kind of obligation, where you need to put something in your goal so that at the end of the quarter you can tick the boxes and get your bonus. A lot of water has flowed since many books have been re-read. I want to share my experience on how to make the quarterly goals tool work effectively for a company, a manager and an employee.

I usually rely on a distant sight and a mix of three strategies.
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Far sight: "If you do not know where to swim, any wind is not fair"

When they talk about quarterly goals, they often forget that the tool is not as effective in itself. In order for it to earn 101%, another important component is needed: a long-range sight, that is, a strategic goal to be pursued. A quarterly plan with such a goal - thinking out the nearest tactics to achieve it.

David Allen, in his acclaimed GTD, offered to build short, everyday plans based on the vision of long-term life plans. Plan your way by seeing your destination on the map.

I use three such destinations, about them further.

A mix of three strategies: “Three sights for an employee within the company”

Scope One: Company Strategy

What is up to the developer about company strategy? When I was a developer, it really seemed like nothing to me. However, strategic plans, one way or another, still influence the developer whether he is ready for it or not. Is the organization planning to enter a foreign market? It's time to learn English or get used to the idea that an employee with a smaller grade, but with good English will grow faster and participate in more interesting projects.

Ideally, goals that relate to the company's strategy are set at the executive level, and they decompose them into subgoals for management. For example, the goal “build a temple” is decomposed into “put a foundation”, “knead concrete”, “put a brick”. At the same time, it is very important that at each stage an employee who is set “to bring a brick” understands that he is building a temple. In other words, each goal must be explained to the very top level of the strategy.

For example, the goal to raise profitability, a top manager can abstractly describe as "competitors have become quite insolent, dumping on the market, it is necessary to become many times more efficient," decomposing for the manager into a "percentage of productive team utilization." And for an employee, it results in several different goals: from the need to be certified and study new technologies, to the request not to sit on the priest even when there is no project work, to proactively offer their participation in other commercial or internal projects.
Explaining to the managers the whole chain so that they convey it to the engineers is important. Important, important! Otherwise, a person will thoughtlessly realize what no one really needs or simply imitate violent activity.



Goals that are automatically derived from a standard piggy bank (Number of spherical innovations per quarter. Number of virtual productive KPIs) mean an important piece of work in someone's intelligent high-ranking head. However, for the rest, remaining a formal description, they end in zilch and the generation of unproductive activities. Unfortunately, such goals do not affect the growth of the organization, and they affect the motivation and condition of the project, but with a minus sign.

Sight Two: Project Strategy

Any project, even if it is very ancient, and nothing new has been happening on it for a long time, there is a development strategy. It may not be broadcast or even realized by the manager, the project can live according to the principle: “we support the project afloat somehow until they close it”. But as long as something else is alive, then something is moving somewhere, and it’s good if the manager, like a good captain, thinks about the direction of movement of his project and sees the shoals.

On growing projects, the strategy is usually clear without much thought. It is clear that as the project grows, you need to set up a good training system and continuity of knowledge. So the project’s long-livers will have the goal to form a knowledge base or act as a mentor for young people.

There are sluggish projects where the same similar tasks are set for years. A well-thinking manager will quickly understand that in two years of such work, people will begin to think about the eternal and ask themselves why he is on this project. In this case, you can consider the possibility of developing in new directions, or at least automating the routine to the maximum and bringing some of the employees to the study of interesting new tools.

After the manager has clearly presented the project's strategy, he can realize how to achieve the goals indicated in it, discuss it with his boss and put it on his quarterly plan. A good reason to put together a team, voice these problems and brainstorm. The solutions obtained are an inexhaustible source of necessary, understandable, motivating quarterly goals for employees.

Scope the third: employee plans

Where can I get an employee career strategy? Ask an employee, of course! The trouble is that sometimes an employee, especially a young one, is not able to clearly answer: what does he want from his career. At that moment, when the manager offers the employee to look for a goal together, he receives such a significant plus in his karma. You can offer the employee several options to choose from. Read books about management, listen to courses on programming, think together, where a person can realize themselves better.

It also happens that an employee simply does not want anything from his company, his goals are far from his career (for example, to break a flower garden) and he sits just for salary. It’s good at least to know about it, and to write out for yourself the anchors that keep him there to be ready for his departure. For example, the main anchor is salary and stability. So, a new big organization, offering a slightly higher salary, takes your employee without options. It’s probably no sense to look for a big goal for him, although it’s worthwhile to try to stir up and interest him with something new.

The best option is when you and the employee understand where he wants to come in about five years from now. I usually find in the organization a person who has already achieved this, and ask him to be a mentor. In addition, for very young developers, we have a painted development plan, including a list of books and courses that need to be phased in.

Of course, it is desirable to develop an employee where the main needs of the project lie. But it happens that in a project on .net, the developer is eager to learn Android. I believe that let him study what is interesting and tell others about it. And life is a long and unpredictable thing, maybe someday an order for Android development will come.

Keeping all three strategies in mind, it’s not difficult to set quarterly goals. One part of them will satisfy the company's strategy, the other will work on the development of your project, the third part will go to the development of the employee. All three types of goals are very serious motivators.
As a result, the employee sees that he is involved in a big business - the work of his company, knows how he influences the project and sees that the company is interested in its development. With such a statement of work, the award for fulfilling quarterly goals that an employee receives is a pleasant bonus, and not a motivating carrot for a donkey.