Goal Examples for Design

White Paper

2015

The BetterWorks Goal Examples

DESIGN

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An effective first step toward setting goals is to define a mission statement

for the next year. Is it to become more well rounded? Be a better team player?

Develop management skills? This mission will act as your goal setting lens,

while letting you stay focused on the more operational, day to day work.

With that mission in mind, set 1-3 operational goals. These are the biggest

deliverables for a given period of time (e.g quarterly cadence, monthly, sprint,

etc.) A designer’s three operational goals are something like this:

• Ship visual designs for the best goals product on the market

• Deliver a best in class integration/partnership experience

• Implement a streamlined design prototyping process

In addition to those 1-3 essential goals, adding goals that fall into these other

3 types as appropriate is recommended. The magic number for quarterly

goals seems to be somewhere between 3 - 5 goals.

These are goals specifically related to self improvement, and may be kept

public or private, depending on the nature of the goal

• Learn sketch

• Speak at a design conference

• Improve ability to frame projects

Goals that define what you can do to play a role in the development

of excellent company culture

• Improve work relationships by inviting each engineer to lunch

• Submit designs for team Dribbble account

• Refer 5 friends to the company

The Mission

Other Goal TypesPERSONAL DEVELOPMENT GOALS

OPERATIONALGOALS

CITIZENSHIP GOALS

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Goals enhancing mentorship and leadership abilities

• Teach a class internally

• Mentor a new intern

• Earn a new certification

Building the Goal

Know what your 3-5 biggest goals are (1-3 mission critical ones and additional

goal types.)

Once your goal is defined, break them down to help you focus on specific

deliverables. These smaller deliverables are hereafter referred to as

milestones. Discrete milestones help you form a plan of action for your

goals. They are also your measures for success. When all is said and

done, you can point to the milestones completed as evidence of your

accomplishments for the quarter.

MILESTONES

Small, specific chunks of work that add up to your mission critical goals; the things you need to do in order to hit your goals, and keep your job. Milestones are specific to each person and their contribution to the company. They are the measures of a goal’s success.

LEADERSHIP GOALS

• Redesign the Activity Feed

• Contribute 3 Modules to the Pattern Library

• Complete 20 User Interviews

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Depending on your company’s culture, it is possible to quantify these milestones,

for example “Redesign the Activity Feed to Increase Social Actions by 20%.”

Metrics are highly effective when they point to an aspirational outcome, but

not when they are so tightly prescribed that they reduce the ability to take risks.

Break down your bigger goals into milestones so you have a tangible plan

for how you will achieve your goals, and can measure your goal’s success.

Are Metric Based Goals Appropriate for Designers?

Connecting your Goals

This is a question we get asked all the time, and the answer is yes and no; it

totally depends on the scenario and design culture you have. If you have a

strong analytics culture within your design and product teams, then metrics

are a good idea. If not, forcing numbers and metrics onto your goals can

actually be a very bad thing. What gets measured gets done, so use metrics

with caution.

For those who are using metrics, one of the best tricks is combining leading

and lagging metrics for the same goal. A leading metric could be 10 user

interviews, and a lagging metric could be an NPS score of 50. If pinpointing

a lagging metric is hard, trying setting a couple leading metrics that almost

guarantee the success of the goal. You may not reach the goal, but if you

set (and obviously complete) good leading metrics, it’s likely you’ll be close.

Depending on your goal setting process, you may have the ability to connect

your goals to others. Alignment is especially common in operational goals,

as they’re directly tied to the progress of company initiatives.

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Department-wide User Research Blitz

A few benefits of connecting goals include:

• Tracking dependencies between within a project

• Seeing how your work aligns to the goals of your company

• Directly contributing to the progress of your team goals

Traditionally, alignment occurs between the goal setter and their manager,

but more often, goals are connected at a project level to track cross functional

dependencies across a project. In product design teams, UX designers

will often want to align to a product lead so there is a holistic view of

dependencies Additionally, designers may want to host a department-wide

blitz on a cultural initiative.

While some alignment is beneficial, it is rare that 100% of goals are aligned to

another goal. Personal development goals, for example may be private to just

a person or their manager.

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Building out your goals takes time, but the basic premises are very simple:

1. Know what your mission critical goals are, and limit them in number

so you stay focused (3-5 total, 1-3 operational goals)

2. Break down those bigger goals into discrete milestones

3. If possible, turn those milestones into quantifiable metrics

4. Connect your goals lets your progress flow throughout your team

and your company, and leads to greater achievement

In Summary

Ensure that the company design style and language is consistent across new features

• Launch interactive pattern library by end of Q2

• Ensure that 100% of “Enterprise Grade” features ship with design consistent with company guidelines

• Meet with all 7 design managers to discuss updated design principles by end of March

• Revamp the company style guide to match new company brand by end of Q1

Develop a design culture of high achievement and rapid promotion

• Develop a concrete promotion track by end of Q1

• Bring 6 design superstars in for team lunches throughout Q1

• Host a 1:1 with each team member to teach and discuss effective framing of projects by end of Q1

• Encourage 60% of the team to attend mentee/coaching seminars by end of Q1

Head of DesignROLE

GOAL AS MEASURED BY

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Create design identity for company’s developer event

• Lead three rounds of brainstormers with marketing team and brand agency by end of February

• Develop 10 different thematic explorations by end of February

• Design full event campaign including billboard, bus panels, and website land-ing page by March 15th

• Coordinate with product design for brand consistency between event and new features by March 5th

Deliver a comprehensive product feature guide to support marketing and sales efforts

• Coordinate with content marketer to define guide content by end of February

• Develop a brand-consistent template that translates the content message by end of February

• Layout the content and create illustrations, icons, and charts by March 7th

• Publish the feature guide to the company resources page by March 10th

Marketing DesignerROLE

GOAL AS MEASURED BY

Design major interactions for March sprint features

• Create and present 5 prototypes to head of design by March 5th

• Participate in 5 user interviews with User Researcher by March 10th

• Meet with lead software engineer and QA engineer 3 times before March 15th

• Deliver visual designs to product and engineering by March 15th

• Increase engagement on all newly designed features by 10%

Product DesignerROLE

GOAL AS MEASURED BY

Improve prototyping, management, and thought leadership for promotion to design manager

• Implement and run a revamped new hire onboarding process by end of Q1

• Create 2 of March sprint prototypes using Form

• Chronicle the design process for new mobile web browser in a blog post by end of Q1

• Attend MAP training session on February 18th

Develop more understanding of our user base and demographic target

• Travel onsite to 6 partner companies by end of Q1

• Onsites not included, hold 60 user interviews by the end of Q1

• Create a model for top 5% of users of the product by end of February

• Distribute nationwide survey to 10,000 individuals to gather demographic data by end of February

• Aggregate user interview and survey data into a comprehensive guide by the end of Q1

User ResearcherROLE

GOAL AS MEASURED BY

Implement and use new user research sprint process for

“Enterprise Grade” features

• Determine sprint process with key stakeholders from product, engineering, and marketing by end of January

• Concept validation by January 30th

• Finalize paper prototypes by February 10th

• Perform usability testing in person and on 3rd party usability sites by March 15th

• Validate success of process through both features outperforming non-process features by 10%

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