Objectives set out what a task is trying to achieve. It is important
for leaders and managements to get the process of setting objectives right, as
inadequately formulated objectives could guide an individual, a team or an
organization in the wrong direction. SMART is an acronym that has been credited
to both Peter Drucker (1955) and G.T.Doran (1991). SMART which is refer to
specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Firstly, Specific means
that to make the outline in a clear statement precisely what is required. Second,
measurable is to include a measure to enable you to monitor progress and to
know when the objective has been achieved. Next, achievable is the objectives
can be designed to be challenging, but it is important that failure is not
built into objectives. Employees and managers should agree to the objectives to
ensure commitment to them. In addition, realistic that focuses on outcomes
rather than the means of achieving them. Last but not least, timely or time
bound is to agree the date by which the outcome must be achieved.
Next stage is to identify the target
audiences. Target audiences can be categorized into internal and external. An
external customer is someone who uses your company's products or services but
is not part of your organization. If you own a retail store, for example, an
external customer is an individual who enters your store and buys merchandise.
An internal customer is any member of your organization who relies on
assistance from another to fulfill her job duties, such as a sales
representative who needs assistance from a customer service representative to
place an order. External customers are essential to the success of any
business, as they provide the revenue stream through their purchases that the
enterprise needs to survive. Satisfied external customers often make repeat
purchases as well as refer your business to other people they know. A customer
who suffers through a negative experience with a business, such as being
treated rudely by an employee, can also hinder a business by dissuading others
from patronizing it. While internal customers may not necessarily purchase the
products or services offered by their employer, the internal customer
relationship also plays a key role in the business's success. In the sales
example, the salesperson who does not work well with customer service may have
greater difficulty placing orders or obtaining answers to his external clients'
questions, resulting in a poor level of service. Strained internal
relationships can also adversely affect company morale.
To select a correct platform, it is important
to understand where your audience is locate, set goals for what you wish to
achieve with your social media efforts. There are four different goals that
normally people wish to achieve, that is improve SEO, increase traffic to site,
increase brand exposure and improve customer engagement. For example, Google+ and
YouTube are the best platforms to focus on if your goals lean towards improving
SEO, while Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are great at driving traffic to
your website. If the main objective for social media is to reach the largest
community, it will definitely want to focus on Facebook. But, don’t forget that
a large community does not mean an engaged community or a community of
potential customers. It is not only to focus only on the size of the community,
but also on the potential to convert those community members into customers or
brand advocates.
The next stage will be planning and construct gantt chart. The
reasons of having a plan is to identify all tasks or project components to make
sure the team includes people with firsthand knowledge of the project so that
during the brainstorming session all component tasks needed to complete the
project are captured. Planning also help to identify the first task that must
be completed and identify any other tasks that can be started simultaneously
with the first task.
Besides
that, planning can identify task durations by using the knowledge of team
members, reach a consensus on the most likely amount of time each task will
require for completion. It is good to construct the Gantt chart. It helps the
planner list tasks in sequence and show clearly the time line that spans the total
required time to complete the project.
Work sampling is to show that the
draft of the plan that the management plan to do. For example, the draft
poster, the new layout of new media, information that will publish in new media
and etc. It is to let the management roughly know the design and what
information that will be publishes for the activities.
Then, defining
an expected outcome is important because we need to objectively state the
idealized result that will be obtained once we implement our problem solving
strategy. By defining our expected outcome before we implement our problem solving strategy we will have a
benchmark that can be used to determine if we are on the right track to solve
our problem, and to evaluate the final outcome to our problem.
Lastly,
measure and evaluation is the process by which data are collected and analyzed
in order to provide information to policy makers and others for use in program
planning and project management. Evaluation is important because it helps
program implementers make informed decisions regarding program operations and
service delivery based on objective evidence through the measurement on how
well the program activities have met expected objectives and/or the extent to
which changes in outcomes can be attributed to the program. It also ensures the
most effective and efficient use of resources, helps determine the success or
failure of a program, and assists in meeting organizational requirements such
as reporting.
