From the course: Project Management Foundations

Define project objectives

From the course: Project Management Foundations

Define project objectives

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- [Instructor] Once you define the project goal, you can flesh it out by identifying more detailed objectives. They help define the project scope, the approach you choose and the success criteria you have to meet. Business objectives, support your organization's goals. For example, increase market share to 25% or provide world class healthcare. Financial objectives are all about money. Think increasing revenue by 15% or cutting costs by 10%. Quality objectives specify how good results need to be. The hospital might want to decrease staph infections by 80% or decrease readmittance by 75%. Projects can also have technical objectives. These are similar to technical specifications for equipment. The hospital might want mobile equipment that can be used in the hospital, an ambulance or at a remote emergency site. There's also a catchall category called performance. Your project might need to finish by a specific date. The hospital has to use the government grants before they expire. Now let's talk about best practices for documenting objectives. One way to define clear objectives is to use SMART criteria. Specific objectives are clear so there's no misunderstanding about what you're supposed to achieve. For example, increase revenue by 15%. With vague objectives, you probably won't get what the project customer had in mind. Measurable objectives make it easy to see whether or not they have been achieved. For example, the hospital can measure the decrease in readmittance or revenue increase. With qualitative measures, you might use survey responses such as a minimum patient satisfaction rating of four and a half stars. Achievable or realistic objectives spell out what you can do with the resources available. Challenging objectives can motivate people but your team might give up if they think the objectives are impossible. Time- related objectives, identify when they need to be achieved. Be sure to set a clear target date. For example, the government grants must be used by December 31st, 2020. Now that the project goal and objectives are identified, you work with the appropriate stakeholders to perform a benefit analysis. That way you can validate that the project aligns with the organization's mission and strategy and delivers the expected value to the business. There are usually multiple ways to achieve the project goal and objectives. That is, strategies for solving the problem. Typically, choosing a strategy is work for senior project managers. However, choosing a strategy begins with a small group of people familiar with the project to brainstorm possible strategies. Then they evaluate how well each strategy satisfies the project objectives. Project objectives help flesh out the project goal and define project scope, approach, and success criteria. The exercise files include an objectives template and a description of what the hospital wants to achieve. Use them to list and categorize the hospital's objectives.

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