How can you measure progress towards team goals and values effectively?

I always say, If you know what you want or your need is , then half the battle is already won. Then come putting it in simple milestones to go after it. Yes needless to say SMART principles can help . Think big and think noble. Take people along in a transparent manner and you will be there ! One thing is clear - invariably everyone have some goal in mind whether it is for survival or luxury or in between both !

"...define clear and specific goals that are relevant and meaningful to your team and your organization." Relevance is one thing, but meaning can be something else entirely and mean different things to different people. Certainly, most organizations look for "meaningful" results and tend to assess them relative to stated goals. However, meaning can be a moving target when it comes to teams and can be interpreted in as many ways as there are team members. Specific goals may suffice for an organization but when it comes down to the front line perhaps it may be more applicable to refer to the "S" in SMART as "Shared." Food for thought.

The yard stick to measure performance is the effort done by people, if the effort has been done in right direction it will be result oriented. One of the reasons of failure is to not follow the right path, even slowest member will reach to destination if he will walk towards right direction.

In my experience - having ‘deliverables’ sheet with 5-6 top dollar items works well. It provides clarity on ‘ask’ and ‘expectation ‘ ! At the end everything should leads to ‘making a difference’ !

Developing OKRs or KPIs for the first time? Do not fear! Many have come before you.. ...and created free templates. Not only can you download a number of worksheets you and your team can use to develop OKRs, KPIs or whatever method you choose, but there are many tools built to enable these goal setting methods as well.

No compromise on values is key and to my mind ‘leadership’ would make a lot difference here. It is always strongly believed that right leader is key for any organisation to take things to next level.

Leadership teams have a tendency to set new goals and seemingly forget the "old" ones. This can be a confusing experience for employees who have been spending the majority of their waking hours working towards said goals. Make sure you have a session to discuss progress, changes and resolutions before moving onto newer shinier goals as the new year approaches.

Assessing and sharing team progress toward goals and values should be an ongoing and dynamic activity. I don't regard the evaluation and communication of results as a "final step" in the process at all. A team may be pursuing several goals at once. Indeed, many usually are. The pursuit of team goals is not as linear a process as the article implies. Nor do the "steps" involved need to follow any strict chronological order. Obtaining, say, a particular performance metric may momentarily hit the mark but the goal may not been achieved until it has been institutionalized into the culture. Different goals require different timeliness that can easily overlap. Think of the process as cyclical, not linear, more analog than digital.