No problem for successful implementation of projects
It seems that the coincidence of goals of all project participants is a necessary condition for its success. However, my experience shows that this is far from true. In this article, I will tell you how differences in goals can become the engine of successful project implementation. You will learn how to define and coordinate different goals so that they do not contradict, but complement each other, and how this can lead to achieving a common goal. I share practical examples from my work and a goal-setting methodology that helped me and my partners achieve success.
Much has been written about the goals and importance of coincidences among all decision-makers in the project, in these very goals for the successful implementation of the project, so I will not repeat myself. Also, I will not write about 5 “magic” ways of setting goals that will allow you to get rich and solve all your existing problems. I will simply tell you about my experience, how the mismatch of goals led to the successful implementation of projects.
Let me start by saying that it seems to me that it is impossible for different people to have the same goals, because everyone — and here the word “everyone” should be taken literally — is different, no matter how prosaic it may sound. And if everyone is different, then the conclusion suggests itself that these people cannot have the same goals, even if they are formulated in the same phrase. For example, one person’s goal is to become the owner of $1,000,000. Well, that’s quite a noble goal. And the second person’s goal is also to become the owner of $1,000,000. At first glance, the goals are completely identical, you might say. But let’s look deeper. Our first person doesn’t live in America, and so $1,000,000 in brand new hundred-dollar bills will suit him just fine, and that’s exactly how it looks in his goal. But our second hero is a real American, and his goal… that's right, the same $1,000,000, but in used twenty-dollar bills. So it turns out that the goals are not at all identical.
Sorry for such a long introduction, but without it it would be more difficult to briefly tell about my experience. And the experience is as follows: a startup or a project for developing a product or application, it does not matter, in my case these were mobile applications. My partners and I decided to make a mobile application. And it seems like there is one goal – a new mobile application with a certain functionality. What is easier? Well, of course, and the proper quality, and deadlines, and resources are scheduled and agreed upon – just a perfect picture. But if you dig deeper, then everything is not so ideal. Or rather, in my case everything turned out ideally, and precisely because I understood that there are no identical goals. Our agreed goal was to create a mobile application, but the real goal of my partner was to become a famous and influential person with the help of this mobile application. This is a completely achievable goal, and the application itself is not the goal here, but only a tool for achieving the real goal. My real goal in this project was the technical implementation of the application itself in the context of presenting the product to me in the form of a high-level description of the concept. That is, having only the product sketches in hand, I needed to implement the project so that all participants were satisfied. If I formulate my goal, then the goal formulation looked like this: to check the correctness of the hypothesis that I will be able to implement a technical project for the development of a mobile application with a given functionality within the agreed time frame with the resources allocated for this project. And this, from my point of view, is also not the original goal for the implementation of the mobile application. As a result, the project was implemented to the satisfaction of all participating parties.
The second project also initially had one goal, but in fact it also broke up into different goals for each of the project participants. If anyone is interested in the details, write in the comments, I will tell you about other projects. By the way, the second project was also successfully implemented. In other words, summing up the above, I have determined the following for myself: for the successful implementation of a project or task, the goals of decision makers may not coincide. The most important thing is that the real goals do not contradict, but complement each other.
If we talk about the methodology, the sequence of steps for such goal setting may look like this:
The first point is a single goal at the highest level, for example, creating a mobile application.
The second point is that each person interested in or somehow influencing the project must define their real goal in the process, the result of which will be the implementation of the first-order goal.
An example of our goals could be:
Become a famous and influential person.
To check the correctness of the hypothesis that I will be able to implement a technical project for the development of a mobile application with a given functionality within the agreed time frame with the resources allocated for this project.
Thus, it is clear that the two goals do not contradict each other, and the implementation of these two different goals leads to the implementation of the upper-level goal.
To sum it up:
There are no people with identical (or, to be more precise, literally coinciding) goals.
The implementation of different goals can lead to the successful implementation of a higher-order goal and, as a consequence, the project as a whole.
