SMART GOAL

SMARTGOAL.docx

Step 1: Define a Career SMART Goal

As MBA students, you are career-directed professionals constantly striving to strike a practical work-life balance. You may not always have the time or resources to manage your career effectively. The following resources will serve as basis to develop your career goal or goals:

· Career Exploration

· Career Planning and Changing

· Individual Career Management

· Career Goal

For this step, think about one long-term career goal. Where would you like to be in your career in three to five years? How will you get there? What resources do you need? What short-term skills do you need to enhance your chances of achieving your career goal? To help you achieve your career goal, complete the following tasks using a leadership development plan (LDP):

· First, download the LDP Template and save it in local storage using the following file-naming protocol: lastname_firstname_preliminary_LDP.docx

· Second, identify and describe in writing one long-term career goal using the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) format. Read SMART goals for specific guidelines.

· Third, place this goal in the LDP template section entitled Long-Term Career Goal.

· Fourth, identify and list five to six short-term development skills that you will need to acquire in order to make progress toward your long-term career goal. Place these skills in the Short-Term Skills Development section of the LDP.

· Finally, place your LDP in the dropbox located in the last step of this project.

Career and leadership development is an ongoing process that will continue well beyond receipt of your MBA. This submission of your leadership development plan is preliminary, as you will have the opportunity to update your LDP in Step 5 of this project. Having two submissions gives you the opportunity to assess and reflect on knowledge you have acquired throughout the term.

When you have submitted your preliminary LDP, proceed to Step 2, where you will work on a preliminary skills gap analysis.

SMART Goals

At work you have probably been involved in setting, measuring, and evaluating progress in meeting goals. These goals may have been set for your particular position, or perhaps they were established for your unit or organization as a whole.

Our focus for this project is on setting goals designed to help you achieve your professional aspirations. Thus, before creating one or more SMART goals it is important to envision and clarify how you see your career progressing, the career path you wish to take to make this possible, and the personal competencies you believe will be important to get you where you want to be. Begin this process by writing a three- to four-sentence statement that summarizes your career aspirations and priorities.

Next, create and implement SMART goals to help you achieve the future you envision for yourself. The SMART model is described below, followed by an example and an explanation of some of its limitations.

Specific—Your goal should be sufficiently specific, such that you identify what you want to achieve, when, where, and why.

Measurable—You need to be able to measure and verify your progress in achieving your goal.

Achievable—Many of us have experience setting a goal that we eventually realize wasn’t really achievable, and it is important to reduce this risk. One approach is to discuss your goals with a mentor, coach, or someone you trust to give you honest and objective feedback.

Relevant—It should be easy to see the connection between your SMART goals and your longer term career and professional aspirations.

Time-bound (timely)—An important criterion for setting an effective SMART goal is that you indicate when it will be accomplished. Be specific about this and include mileposts and deadlines.

Examples

A broad (longer-term) career goal might be to achieve a position as a senior project leader within the next two years. Competencies needed for this position include advanced knowledge and skills related to creating and sustaining high-performing teams.

To achieve the objective of advanced knowledge, an associated SMART goal might be to read a minimum of six articles (M) by leading team scholars (S) by the end of this semester (T) and create a one-page personal briefing note (A) that captures the main lessons learned, along with follow-up actions (R).

To gain advanced skills, an associated SMART goal might be to practice active listening skills (S) with team members, arrange to obtain feedback on this practice from a team buddy (M), and include results and follow-up actions in a one-page briefing note (A & R) while working with a team to complete a project (T).

Limitations

One criticism of the SMART goal is that this approach may not be useful for those in positions or organizations requiring high levels of flexibility and innovation. Prather (2005) notes that innovation necessitates outside-the-box thinking, and the somewhat inflexible nature of SMART goals makes them less appropriate in settings where major innovations or breakthroughs are needed.

References

Prather, C. W. (2005). The dumb thing about SMART goals for innovation. Research Technology Management, 48(5), 14-15. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=18241690&site=eds-live&scope=site

Step 2: Complete A Skills Gap Analysis

The preliminary leadership development plan allowed you to identify and develop a plan to help you achieve one long-term career goal. Step 2 will introduce you to a skills gap analysis, which will assess your specific skills as they pertain to each of the four course projects and help you identify the skill areas you want to enhance. You will revisit the skills gap analysis at the end of the term in order to measure the progress you made as a result of completing the four course projects.

Complete your preliminary skills gap analysis and related skills gap table by the end of Week 1. Carefully follow the instructions below:

· The preliminary skills gap analysis has four parts that parallel each of the four course projects. After you complete the preliminary skills gap analysis, select one skill area from each of its four parts where a meaningful gap exists. These should be skill gaps you want to reduce during this term to enhance your leadership skills, bolster your current career, and ultimately achieve your career goals.

· Place each of the four skill area gaps you identified from the skills gap analysis in the skills gap table. The table has a separate space for each of your four gap goals.

· In the skills gap table, list the developmental activities, completion date, resources and costs, and expected outcomes associated with each of the four skills gap goals you identified. The table serves as an action plan that leads to the accomplishment of each of the four skills gap goals. It details the activities you will undertake to reduce each of your four selected skill gaps during the remaining weeks of this term.

· Consider all appropriate activities and resources that would help reduce each of the four skill gaps. These resources might include conferences, books, free online classes, mentorship, coaching, observation, professional associations and groups, networking, volunteering, journaling, and so forth. Select the appropriate activities related to each of your four skill gaps and list them in the skills gap table. Submit your preliminary skills gap analysis and the skills gap table in the dropbox located in the last step of this project. This part of Project 1 is now complete.

· You will update your preliminary skills gap analysis during the last week of the term to assess the progress you have made on the skill gaps you identified and to determine the impact of this course on your leadership and career goals.

After you submit your preliminary skills gap analysis and skills gap table, continue to Step 3.

Step 3: Reflect on Your Leadership Development

Developing your career, managing others, and becoming a leader begins with self-examination. An individual must first develop an accurate view of his or her own interests, values, skills, limitations, and preferences in order to make career choices and advance their career. A research-based relationship between personal effectiveness, career, and leadership development quickly emerges.

This step will provide the necessary knowledge to initiate a personal effectiveness and career development plan. The process will enhance your development plan by providing you with the opportunity to use a personality assessment tool as a resource to gain a better understanding of yourself. Finally, you will be able to incorporate these insights in your Week 11 LDP Reflections Summary.

The following readings and the assessment tool will allow you to achieve several objectives:

· Personal Effectiveness—This resource will increase your knowledge of self-awareness as a driver of personal effectiveness and the relationship between personal effectiveness and leadership.

· Personality Assessments—This resource will help you understand the utility of personality assessments.

Proceed to the discussion CliftonStrengths Overview and Instructions for taking the CliftonStrengths assessment.

The CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsQuest) assessment has been under continuous development for more than three decades. The major construct underpinning the assessment is that each individual has a set of core strengths that correlate to career growth, personal effectiveness, job satisfaction, and personal fulfillment.

Aside from the benefits that accrue to individuals who are conversant with their strengths and how to best use them, CliftonStrengths is useful to teams by indicating the strengths each team member can contribute to facilitate the achievement of team goals and projects.

During this week, participate in the Class Discussion on CliftonStrengths so that you can share your results and gain a deeper and fuller understanding of your unique strengths, as identified by the CliftonStrengths assessment. Moreover, as part of the project plan required for Project 4 later in the term, a CliftonStrengths team members grid must be completed. The team members grid is used to identify the strengths each team member can contribute.

In Week 11, you will submit an LDP reflections summary and gap reflections summary. As you conclude Project 1, think about what you learned during the course of this project. In your reflections, you will be asked to consider the impact of self-awareness on your career goals and leadership development, as well as the influence of taking an assessment, reading about other assessments, and participating in a week-long personal assessment discussion.

When you have finished the readings and the Class Discussion on CliftonStrengths, proceed to Step 4, where you will complete your final skills gap analysis.

Step 4: Complete Your Final Skills Gap Analysis

In this project, you have had the opportunity to create two different, yet complementary, development plans. The first was the leadership development plan, which focused primarily on those behavioral competencies that would enable you to develop skills to achieve your career goals and assume leadership responsibilities as a professional in your field. The second was the skills gap analysis, which focused primarily on specific task-driven skills that you could improve with the intention to meet predetermined goals. These skills were especially relevant to the four course projects, future MBA projects, and the achievement of your career and leadership aspirations.

To measure your progress on the skill gaps you identified earlier in the course as being integral to your personal leadership effectiveness, you are encouraged to reflect on your progress in developing those skills. With this in mind, complete the following steps:

· Complete your final MBA 610 skills gap analysis using the same instrument you completed in Week 1. In other words, you are updating the preliminary skills gap analysis.

· Take note of all changes, including those in the four skill gaps you selected in Week 1.

· In the dropbox located in the last step of this project, post a copy of your final MBA 610 skills gap analysis, including a reflection summary of between 500 and 750 words on the lessons you learned and the progress you made toward reducing the gaps identified in your preliminary skills gap analysis. The reflection summary should identify and briefly discuss the skill gaps that require further development and how that development would occur in the MBA program and throughout your career. You may also wish to integrate material from other aspects of the course in your reflection summary.

Remember, career and leadership development is an ongoing process that will continue well beyond receipt of your MBA. You are encouraged to assume responsibility for this process.

When you have submitted your final skills gap analysis and reflection summary, continue to Step 5, where you will complete your final LDP.

Step 5: Complete Your Final LDP

This project step has considerable significance. It provides you with a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of the course, your personality assessment, and the individual readings on your long-term career and leadership goals.

In this step, complete the following requirements:

· Include a reflection summary of between 500 and 750 words detailing the insights you gained from the assessments, discussions, feedback, group activities, and course readings that will facilitate the achievement of your SMART goal, career aspirations, and short-term developmental skills progress. Also explain what actions you intend to take based on these insights.

· After you write your reflection summary, make any modifications needed for your final LDP submission. Place in bold print on the final LDP any areas that changed between your preliminary LDP submission and your final LDP submission.

· Use the dropbox in the last step of this project to submit a copy of your final LDP and reflection summary to the appropriate assignment folder.

We trust that the development of an LDP and the acknowledgement of your short term skills development needs will result in the achievement of your long-term career goal.

Proceed to the next step to submit your work.

Step 6: Submit Your Work

Make a note of the recommended delivery dates in the table below. Since the purpose of this project is to assess your development, it's important that you follow the suggested timeline. You will receive feedback on all deliverables in Week 11

Step #	Submission week	Deliverable	File-naming protocol
Step 1	Week 1	· Preliminary LDP	· lastname_firstname_preliminary_LDP.docx
Step 2	Week 1	· Preliminary skills gap analysis · Preliminary skills gap table	· lastname_firstname_preliminary_skills_gap.xlsx · lastname_firstname_preliminary_gap_table.docx
Step 4	Week 10	· Final MBA 610 skills gap analysis · Final skills gap table · Final skills gap reflection summary	· lastname_firstname_final_skills_gap.xlsx · lastname_firstname_final_gap_table.docx · lastname_firstname_gapreflection.docx
Step 5	Week 10	· Final MBA 610 LDP · Final LDP reflection summary	· lastname_firstname_final_LDP.docx · lastname_firstname_LDPReflection.docx

When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your work before submission.

· 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that substantiates the writer’s ideas.

· 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.

· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under critical consideration.

· 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the issue or problem.

· 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized manner to determine its value and relevance to the problem.

· 2.4: Consider and analyze information in context to the issue or problem.

· 2.5: Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions, checking them against relevant criteria and benchmarks.

· 5.3: Create, implement, and evaluate a personal leadership development plan.