On goals and objectives, part one

When we start work on the site, we first work out the concept. We find out the goals for which the site is being created, and set the tasks that the site must solve. Then we determine the ways in which these tasks will be solved. This is exactly the way: we find out the goals, set the tasks, determine the methods, and select the resources.

By the way, most customers do not know how to correctly formulate the purpose of creating a site. The questions “why do you want to make a website?” Are answered by something like “well, this is morally obsolete” or “inconvenient to administer”. Although the answer to the question " for what " should even begin differently. For example, “ in order to sell our goods” or “ in order to attract investors”. To train the customer and help him formulate goals correctly is part of our work.

Clarifying goals and setting goals is one of the key points in developing a website. But not everyone agrees. Some people are surprised, they say, why are we going to talk with you about the goals, we need a website with news and a flash movie on the main page, say hope is worth it. And come across subjects that are not persuaded. It is good that today we can afford not to work with such customers.
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What's going on in your head

But there are people with whom you can work. They just do not understand why they need to set goals, do not see differences between goals and objectives. They have never been taught this. Some even turn everything upside down. I will quote one of the entries in LiveJournal:

Goals and objectives could be very different in scale. The general principle is to satisfy hunger, feed the family, get into the wild beast, using a bow and arrow. The goal is the beast itself, and possibly the special, most vulnerable parts of its body.

I strongly disagree. The beast in this case is not a goal, but a target, a point of application of effort. The goal is always outside of activity. For example, the activity - hunting. The goal is to feed the family. To achieve this goal, the hunter solves the problem: get the meat, bring the meat home, where the wife, to achieve this goal, will begin her activity - cooking.

In turn, each of the tasks can be divided into subtasks. For example, to get meat, you need to hunt down the beast and kill it. To bring the meat home, you need to separate the pieces of meat, pack it for carrying, come home with it. To pack meat, you need resources — some kind of skin and rope. That is, there is a subtask: to carve out a piece of skin and build a game bag. And so on.

The goal is what the activity is for. The task is what we solve in the course of activity in order to achieve the goal.

What are goals for? The goal is a guideline. It is from the point of view of achieving the goal that any activity should be evaluated.

Let's go back to the hunter example. Kill the beast can be a huge number of ways. For example, to blow it to hell, so that the guts would be swept away. Will the beast be killed? Sure. The task of "killing the beast" will be solved. But the goal of our hunt is to feed the family. If you focus on this goal, it becomes clear that the chosen method of killing the beast is unacceptable. Meat will not be collected later. But if the purpose of the hunt was to rid the tribe of the raid of the beast-eater, then this method could be suitable.

Moreover, the activity itself should also be assessed in terms of achieving the goal . Say, today, to feed your family, you can go hunting too. But resources (time, money, effort) will be used much more efficiently, and the risks will be much less if you go not to the hunt, but to work, and after - to the store.

Why people do not like to prescribe goals

Oops ;-) Guess what happened? Hint: a non-technical issue.