What do you do if transportation planners struggle to convey their performance goals during evaluations?

1 Define your goals clearly

Before you can present your performance goals, you need to define them clearly and realistically. What are the outcomes and outputs that you want to achieve? How do they align with your vision, mission, and objectives? How do they relate to the needs and expectations of your target audience? Use SMART criteria (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to guide your goal-setting process. Write down your goals in clear and concise language that anyone can understand.

2 Choose appropriate indicators and metrics

Once you have your goals, you need to choose indicators and metrics that can measure and demonstrate your progress and results. Indicators are qualitative or quantitative measures that show how well you are performing against your goals. Metrics are the units or scales that you use to quantify or compare your indicators. For example, if your goal is to reduce traffic congestion, your indicator could be the average travel time or speed, and your metric could be minutes or miles per hour. Choose indicators and metrics that are relevant, reliable, valid, and easy to collect and analyze.

3 Use data visualization and storytelling

Data alone is not enough to convey your performance goals. You need to use data visualization and storytelling techniques to make your data more engaging, informative, and persuasive. Data visualization is the use of graphs, charts, maps, or other visual elements to display your data in a way that highlights patterns, trends, or relationships. Storytelling is the use of narrative, emotion, or context to explain the meaning and significance of your data. For example, you can use a map to show the spatial distribution of your project's beneficiaries, and then tell a story about how your project improved their mobility and quality of life.

6 Practice and refine your presentation

Finally, you need to practice and refine your presentation before you deliver it to your audience. Practice can help you improve your confidence, clarity, and delivery. It can also help you anticipate and prepare for potential questions, challenges, or objections. You can practice by yourself, with a colleague, or with a mock audience. You can refine your presentation by reviewing your content, structure, language, and visuals. You can also use tools like PowerPoint, Prezi, or Canva to create and edit your slides or posters.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?