As the year progresses EVACLORP continues to promote the use of best practices in a variety of areas. One of the areas we spend lots of time working on with clients is on setting attainable goals. Goal setting is an essential component of successful growth and development. Clearly-defined goals allow individual and collective efforts to be directed towards a specific aim or result. Navigating this process of goal setting can be complex; therefore, when goal setting, EVALCORP suggests keeping the following “EVAL” practices in mind:
Establish clear, specific, and realistic goals.
Once goals are established, remember to set realistic time frames, identify necessary resources to accomplish goals, and potential barriers that might need to be mitigated.
Verify that goals are being met.
Track relevant data and identify measures that directly tie to your goals. Then remember to measure/assess progress on an ongoing basis.
Adjust your course of action, if needed.
Challenges are an inevitable part of any project or plan, but you should not lose motivation or focus to continue to move forward towards goals! Rather, remain flexible, and modify your actions or strategies, if needed! Unexpected barriers or complications should redirect attention to a possible need for revising goals, how goals are being measures, or developing creative solutions.
Learn from the process.
Goal setting and working to achieve established can be viewed as a learning process and include reflection and debriefing on whether a goal or desired impact was achieved, areas of success and failure, and what could be done differently in the future.
EVALCORP consistently uses these practices internally and when partnering with clients to establish a comprehensive understanding of current needs, program activities, goals, objectives, and outcomes.