Relationship with objectives

‘Life is too short to start work on your dreams tomorrow for tomorrow never comes. You might as well start working to achieve your goals today.’
Radical focus

Someone in a role will have demonstrated their ability during their interview. We should trust the person to have the ability, skills, and experience to deliver. In the agile environment, it’s easy to see those outcomes and deliverables.

1:1 monthly performance check-in’s with line managers/ profession managers should be about growth, development, and learning. With the individual in the centre. Cutting the long story short….I believe in the power of ‘learning through play.

Learning and development culture contributes toward’s delivery outcomes. People do their best work when they feel safe, motivated, engaged, learn, grow and develop. This isn’t made up. I’ve read bits here and there and each time I strengthen my views and values. Lego Foundation has tons of material from psychologists which supports ‘learning through play.’

Google search: “Play for adults is critical in our stressful go-go-go lives. The play has been shown to release endorphins, improve brain functionality, and stimulate creativity. And it can even help to keep us young and feeling energetic. Studies show that play improves memory and stimulates the growth of the cerebral cortex.”

Environments that promote growth in learning, are spaces where people tend to thrive. As head of design, in a leadership position, I’ve been in a fortunate position where I could test and experiment. It’s a win-win outcome for all.

Setting objectives shouldn’t be a tick-box exercise. It’s not to make you appear productive. Or a process to adhere to business protocol. They should actually benefit the person who’s working to meet those objectives. Seeing the individual grow in confidence. Learn new skills and apply them to their delivery. Achieve outcomes that help them secure their next position. Gain more authority or anything which they seek to achieve. Objectives should help the individual reach a destination they aspire to get to. Success means different things to people. Having the same uniformed objectives doesn’t work for humans who are different. From different walks of life and backgrounds. Different values, perspectives, and opinions. What motivates and drives them will also be different. Treating people as unique individuals. Tailoring objectives to meet their needs is how I choose to lead.

I designed a design strategy at the Department for Education. To mature our profession we need the basic foundations in place. (Coming soon). What is important for this post… The design strategy supports and complements the digital strategy led by Emma Stace. This is the part where the design strategy links and supports the business objectives. What this doesn’t mean is every designer should now have the same set of goals that links to one of the business outcomes. 80% of the time a designer is working in a delivery team to deliver against the business outcome. They don’t need a set of objectives that repeat what is/should be their job role. If this isn’t met, that’s a different journey to explore.

From this point onwards, each objective for every designer in my profession is about them! Their growth and their development in the middle. I didn’t ask for permission or consent to putting any of this work into practice. I did it because it felt right. It felt like the right thing for the individuals I’m responsible for and the department I’m proud to serve. I didn’t force it on anyone. I watched it grow and for designer's relationships with objectives to emerge.

I must also admit. A lot of this material is self-taught through reading books and listening to youtube. A lot of my thinking and approach have been led by, key people such as Simon Sinek, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, Christina Wodtke, Sarah Drummond, and Jeff Gothelf. (These are people I’m inspired by). I’m on a journey to shape my leadership style to be the leader I wish I had. My personal relationship with organisational objectives didn’t work. I have scars that I share when I line manage, profession manage, or run a masterclass. I check to see if those experiences resonate with my peers. Each time I share, my confidence grows. I hear similar stories. Engagement and adoption increase with the material I’m sharing.

Setting work objectives

I have a basic rule.

Limit quarterly objectives to 4. (5 at a push, if someone can’t slim it down.) They must be set in quarters. 3 months is enough space to understand, define, test, and deliver.

2 objectives that focus on delivery. (80% of work time)

• 1 which supports the job description. To make sure the designer is accountable/responsible for the job they are here to do. (Organisational assurance process you could say. It’s also my safety net to make sure the designers who adopt my objective-setting method won’t get into trouble. Should the designer not meet the job description we have a baseline to support them too.)
• 1 profession focused on delivery. How are you in your current role pushing yourself to deliver quality outcomes? How do you make sure you deliver to best practices? (again assurance but more to strengthen the quality of the designer and practice).

1 Objective on the community of practice (10% of work time.)
To develop/strengthen your skills. This allows designers to pull their heads out of the water and look sideways. Review how they improve their skills. (Sharpen the Saw®, based on habit 7 in the 7 habits of highly effective people®).

1 objective on L&D. (10% of work time)
Grow new skills. This is about the person thinking about the present or future. Reflect on gaps or areas of vulnerability. Let’s fill those gaps and improve confidence, growth or just practice to get better by doing more.

Red flags to look out for:

1. Designers with 1-year objectives. These might be epics/ambitions. How realistic are they? How many of them have made progress? What does success mean for each quarter? How motivated and engaged is the designer? From experience, designers dislike these meetings. It’s a workday tick box exercise. I see this type of format as a complete waste of time and effort. I will ask if it’s worth breaking down the objectives into quarters so we can measure progress. Ask to see the change/progress on the 1-year objective. Or ask to understand the reasons for the little/zero progress.
2. The number of objectives a designer might have in their one-to-one performance check-in with a line manager. Is the number of objectives realistic, achievable and feasible for the designer to deliver within a set given time? In my opinion, when a designer has more than 5, it’s a nice way to appear busy. However, how many of them actually get delivered? How much progress is made? I would much prefer having fewer objectives that are met vs having too many objectives which only barely get started and don’t move beyond that.
3. Designers tone of voice. Get feedback directly from the designer. I tend to ask questions such as how motivated and excited are you about the objectives that have been set. How do these objectives help you to achieve your goals as a designer? The tone of voice and the excitement gives it away. Usually, designers own up and say they only have them because they are expected to have them. Their relationship with them is non-existent. They don’t have a positive experience or see the benefits behind why they help them.

Format

I use the same template format Sarah Drummond shared with me when I was introducing community objectives. You can [download the template here]. I love it. It’s so simple. And forces the person owning the objective to limit key results to 4. Again making it realistic and achievable. Objectives are more about outcomes over outputs. It’s about quality over quantity. Its behaviour changes! When this happens, you have personal growth and development. These behaviors are transferable in delivery and life journeys.

I also ask designers to highlight the following;

• Red — dependency
• Amber — output
• Blue — unclear

If they are too close to the objective, I recommend peer reviewing or having a line manager highlight to help refine.

My relationship with objectives is one I take seriously. I share my takeaways from ‘start with why’ from Simon. I’ve adapted for designers with business outcomes in mind. I help designers bond with their own objectives through a practical masterclass. Putting yourself in the centre is important. If you don’t, who will?

Here are some quotes from designers in my profession, I’ve supported. And it’s this feedback that helps me to keep going.

“It makes development chats really productive and specific.
It’s not something I have to look at every day. But having done the work to write it up and reviewing it each month means it’s in my head and I feel more structured and secure, which is great for my anxiety (and suspected ADHD). Thanks Jas!”

“It was really re-assuring to think about how my OKRs can help achieve my ambitions (I was in a job 2 years ago where I was successful but unhappy, so it was re-assuring to hear your experience).”

“Gave me a useful framework to share with the 2 people I line manage, and help them focus on how the smaller things (KRs) add up to the big things (Os)”