Archive for the ‘Management’ Category
Management Toolkit: SMART Goals
In the last post we discussed Management vs Leadership, now let’s start getting into some useful tools, traits, and behaviors for both managers and leaders. Starting us off will be SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time-based. Once you hear about SMART goals and what SMART goals represent it sounds so obvious: of course goals need to be realistic and achievable, they have be measurable. If they can’t measured how can you gauge progress and feel a sense of accomplishment when you have reached a certain milestone?
As obvious as SMART goals sound it is something that can be easily overlooked when you are handling a large-scale project or fast-paced environment. We may get caught up in the moment or during a meeting, a new blocker was discovered or timelines were changed these things may catch us by surprise and we need to react quickly. As everyone starts to react tasks and goals are assigned with alacrity to address these new challenges.
As a manager you get to know your team and peers, you know what everyone is capable of. While you as the manager reacted and assign items did you assign SMART goals or did you just assign a task that you know your team can handle? This is how easy it is to overlook SMART goals. Next up, we’ll go over some examples of SMART goals. As mentioned in my previous post, I have a background in IT Network Engineering, the following example with be focused on network engineering.
Please configure those switches
Here we have a very basic task or goal to configure those switches. This doesn’t seem very SMART.
- Specific – This task does not the specify which switches we should configure
- Measurable – There is nothing to measure progress, how many switches need to be configured?
- Achievable – The task does not provide any insight on how achieve success or what success looks like
- Relevant – Context is not provided, there is no mention of why this task is important or why it needs to be completed
- Time-based – No timeline, deadline, or start time is mentioned how do we know when this is supposed to be completed by?
Even though the original ask seems like a simple task it leaves out of important details and these important details are the difference between success and failure. Now, let’s see what we can do to make this SMART.
Specific – Where can we include more specific information and details to properly identify what needs to be done, this is helpful because it answers follow-up questions like ‘Which switches?’ or ‘What location are they going to be deployed at?”
Please configure the new HPE Aruba CX 6300M switches for the new Contoso building
In our updated ask here, we specify what switches are to be configured:
- The new HPE Aruba CX 6300M switches
We also specify where in the network these switches need to be deployed allowing us to configure the switch properly for the unique location.
- The new Contoso building
This is an improvement but let’s continue to make this even SMARTer
Measurable – How will we measure the progressing and success of this task or goal?
Please configure the 16x new HPE Aruba CX 6300M switches for the new Contoso building
Next, we specify a quantity of switches that needs to be configured. (It’s never usually just one right?)
- The 16x new HPE Aruba CX 6300M switches
Now, that we have specified a quantity we can measure progress. This is great for the following reasons:
- We can forecast and plan for the completion of this task or goal – It takes X amount of time to configure one switch or switch stack
- We can properly offer status updates – Y of 16 are completed
- Now that the task is measurable we can determine if timelines aligns with the task or goal
Lets see how else we can improve this:
Achievable – How can we help make this task more achievable? What guidance, recommendations, extra information can we provide to make sure the person who is assigned this task or goal will be successful?
Using our standard templates, please configure the 16x new HPE Aruba CX 6300M switches for the new Contoso building.
Advising on how the task should be performed provides direction and also sets expectation. After all we need these switches (or this task) completed in a certain way if the task is not performed the way we are expecting then success may not be achieved. It is the managers role to ensure expectations are set and that the ask is properly understood. Communication is key and you must strike a balance between communicating too little and communicating too much, but we must communicate enough to set our team up for success and to properly accomplish a task or goal.
Relevant – Why is this important? It is good to emphasis the value of performing tasks or goals, people want to know that their work has meaning. If someone does not feel like their work is important or impactful than that may affect their outlook on the task or goal. Nothing is more dis-empowering or de-moralizing than putting a worth-while effort into a task only to find out the effort was for nought and work gets cast aside never to be mentioned again.
Using our standard templates, please configure 16 network switches for the new Contoso building. We need to provide network access to go-live at the new warehouse which is expected to increase our yearly profit by 20%.
Here our message was updated once more, not with details about how to accomplish but more background information and context. We now know why we need to configure these new switches. These new switches are part of larger project to activate a new warehouse for the business. This new warehouse is expected to have a large and positive outcome for the business as a whole.
As manager it is important we keep our teams updated with the wider vision of the business. The team needs to know that their work is important and directly affects the business (either positively or negatively). All too often on the IS / IT side we hear about “The business” sometimes we know what that means, sometimes it’s an unknown mysterious group in a conference room somewhere. The more transparency that exists between the business and IT goals the more efficient both parties can be in delivering success.
Time-based – Setting a timeline for a task or goal helps set expectation. If expectations are not aligned each party will define their own independent expectations and timelines which may or may not align with what is considered success.
Using our standard templates, please configure 16 network switches for the new Contoso building. We need to provide network access to go-live at the new warehouse which is expected to increase our yearly profit by 20%. The switches need to be configured and installed within the next 14 days, status updates are due every 2 days.
This tells us when the task or goal must be completed by and how often we need to communicate updates, allowing the to team stay up-to date as progress changes. Frequent updates are important because they allow the team to stay in-sync and if anything does change those changes are communicated promptly and plan is adjusted.
There we have it, a SMART goal it’s fair to say that the goal changed quite a bit over the course of this post:
Original: Please configure those switches
—–
SMART: Using our standard templates, please configure 16 network switches for the new Contoso building. We need to provide network access to go-live at the new warehouse which is expected to increase our yearly profit by 20%. The switches need to be configured and installed within the next 14 days, status updates are due every 2 days.
Quite a difference right? It’s easy to see which goal or task brings with it a better chance of success. This then begs the question, does every task need to be ‘SMART‘?
Well that depends, as a manager you need to know your team. The SMARTer your goal is the better chance of success it has but I will be the first to admit not all my assigned tasks or goals are SMART. I’ve worked on many teams with many different individuals at varying skill sets, depending on the skill set of that individual my ask might be SMART or might not be SMART. Something we might cover in a future post is Situational Leadership, the task I am assigning to a team member is he a D1 or and D4? The answer to this question will affect how SMART my goal is. There are some teammates that I have worked along side with for years, they know what I am looking for and in those cases goals or tasks might be different than for let’s say for someone I have never worked with before. Use SMART goals at your discretion, when in doubt maybe air on the side SMARTer goals to ensure the ask is clear and expectations are set.
Times have truly changed here we are talking about configuring HPE Aruba switches, management, teaming, and situational leadership we’ve come a long since my first post talking about the 1 Step Router Lockdown feature in the Java based Cisco SDM tool (anyone remember that tool?)
Leadership vs Management
Leadership and management these two are often used interchangeably but are they interchangeable? Do we consider all managers to also be leaders and are all leaders managers? While the best managers will have traits of a good leader and visa-versa these two roles are not always synonymous. First thing we will want to do is to look at these roles individually and understand what the goal is each of these roles and how these roles interact with those around them.
Managers and Management
Management tends to a fluid role filling gaps as needed to make sure objectives and goals are met. In order to make sure goals are met managers often need to do following:
Planning: Since manager’s are tasked to accomplish a task within a certain timeline, resources, budget, and other constraints managers must have to ability to sit down and consider the tasks that have to be performed to accomplish the goal. These tasks also have to be accomplished within a certain time-frame and budget. This where you need to start answering the questions:
- What steps need to happen in order to complete the tasks?
- How much time does each step take?
- How many tasks can be executed in parallel?
- Which steps incur the most risk?
- How can address each risk?
- Are there any holidays, blackout days, or vacations overlapping with the schedule?
- Can the team maintain the pace required for duration of the task / project?
- Along many more questions..
While larger and long-term tasks / projects may have a dedicated or team of project managers, each manager is usually assigned or responsible for a particular domain which requires that manager to have deep understanding of their knowledge domain in order to deliver and plan for success.
Maintaining control and rationalizing: This can be a tricky one, as managers are responsible for delivering value to the business within the agreed upon timeline and budget a certain level of control must be maintained. Balancing how much control is required over the given situation without crossing a line is where it gets tricky. Managers that maintain too much control come off as micro-managers where-as having too little control are accompanied by its own set of issues. Some challenges includes:
- Maintaining progress to meet dealines
- Confirming people are where and when they need to be
- Staying ahead of gates, blockers and issues
- Operating within a budget
Setting goals and developing the team: As managers you are typically managing people and when you are managing people it is important to make sure goals and a progression is defined. Most people want to be challenged so that they can continue to grow.
- Where does this team member see themselves in the future?
- Is there a development plan to support this team member meet his future plans?
- Is the goal clearly defined and understood by everyone involved?
When it comes to goal setting and development plans there are many different things to consider these are just a couple of points (Maybe we will cover this more in a future post).
Leaders and Leadership
Where managers are focused on the objectives, the team, and delivering to the business; leaders on the other hand tend to be focused on a longer term impact to the business: developing a vision, inspiring new ideas and creating change while empowering those around them.
Motivate and Inspire: As a leader you want to provoke new ideas and out-of-box thinking, the best way to accomplish that is to inspire and motivate those around you.
- Brining a good energy to the team, room, or meeting
- Making sure everyone has a voice and is able to bring their ideas to the table
- Create a space that these ideas can be presented without fear or criticism, ridicule, or negativity
Ethical Champion: In order to empower and align those around you as a leader you must be trust-worthy and act with integrity. As you develop a rapport with those around you, your actions will convey your intentions and if your intentions / ethics are questionable you may find that people may not be upfront with you and if the team can’t be upfront with you then their will struggles in realizing and gaining support for a long-term vision. Leaders are those people that people may turn to when they hit challenge. Think about, the last time you hit a tough spot who did you turn to? Do you always report to a you direct manager or is there another peer you turn to for opinions, why do you go this person?
Setting a direction: Leaders are usually looking ahead toward long-term goals, these may involve changes to corporate culture or technology.
- Building on the last two sections, as leaders gain the trust of those around them and continue to motivate / inspire those around they are able to influence the direction forward. Now, Influence can be good or bad, in the association of leadership we assume this influence is designed to be positive. After all our leaders are ethical and looking for the best interest.
- When you are trying to change direction, you need to involve those that will be impacted by change. Soliciting ideas and inspiring the team come up with creative ways on how they can be a part of the upcoming change and how can the upcoming change be accomplished. This allows the team to be part of the vision allowing more people to buy in to the idea thus improving your chances of success.
I’ll provide a couple links below to two different podcast. These are podcast I have been subscribed to for many years now, one is focused on management and the second focused on leadership. I found these very insightful as they cover many different aspects of management and leadership:
The Look and Sound of Leadership
Long time readers will know my background originates from IT engineering, specifically network engineering. These leadership and management tid-bits are from my first hand experience, I do not have a business degree. Feel free to drop a comment to provide your thoughts and insight.
CCIE or Null! 