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Prepping for Success
SMART Objectives
Difficulty
Beginner
Duration
8m
Students
698
Ratings
4.8/5
Description

Course Description 

Great prep is a key part of effective workshop facilitation. This module introduces you to some of the things you need to be thinking about while prepping for a workshop.  

Learning Objectives 

The objectives of this course are to provide you with and understanding of: 

  • What the SMART framework is 
  • How to set SMART objectives 
  • Key elements of the workshop planning process 
  • How to create strong workshop agendas 

Intended Audience 

This course is aimed at Scrum Masters who want to improve their individual knowledge of facilitating workshops in service to their Scrum team and their wider organization  

Prerequisites of the Certifications 

There are no specific pre-requisites to study this course 

Feedback 

We welcome all feedback and suggestions - please contact us at qa.elearningadmin@qa.com to let us know what you think. 

Transcript

Going into a workshop, it's crucial that you have set objectives with valuable outcomes. Bad objective can completely derail a workshop. But what do great objectives look like? Well, great objectives tend to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound, or SMART for short. The SMART framework gives you a really easy and reliable way to make sure that the objectives you set are really effective. Let's look at each of these in a little more detail. Objective should be specific. Is the objective and its consequences clear? For instance, create a new UI for the website, compared with create a new UI for the website that express our brand and values and is as user-friendly as possible. This added detail, added specifics means that everyone understands what they're trying to achieve a new UI that expresses the brand and values and why it's important to be as user-friendly as possible. Objective should be measurable. You must be able to compare apples with apples and to show that the result of your objective will give a measurable benefit to the organization or its customers. There are no simple metrics that apply to UI and UX. It really depends on what the customer is looking for out of the site. But for simplicity's sake, let's imagine that we add, we want to reduce the number of clicks our users have to make to easily get to what they're looking for on our website. We can then measure the decrease in clicks through our users, once we've completed the work. Next up, your objective should be achievable and realistic. As a facilitator, you need to know the capabilities of the people in the workshop. Do you have enough time to achieve your objectives on the workshop? Do you have the right people to do so? Are the objectives relevant to the people in your workshop? If your goal was to reduce the number of clicks the user makes by say 90%, the chance of success is probably quite low. So this isn't achievable. If you don't have the right people in the workshop to do this work, it isn't a realistic. Last up, objectives should be time-bound. You should a set agenda for every workshop and know how long you want to spend meeting every objective. This doesn't mean you should be totally inflexible and if the team needs more or less time to work through an objective, you'll probably need to adapt on the go. But at the same time, you cannot let the entire workshop be derailed by the team spending too much time on a single objective. And that's it for this video. As a facilitator, one of your key responsibilities is to set great objectives for any workshop you're running. A quick and easy way to remember how to do this is to use the SMART frame work. Although over time, setting SMART objectives will be second nature to you.

About the Author
Students
11461
Courses
37
Learning Paths
28

Tony has over 20 years’ experience in Business Development, Business Change, Consulting, and Project/Program Management working with public, private, and third sector organizations.

He has helped organizations to design and create processes and procedures to align ways of working with corporate strategy. A highly motivated and detailed solution provider, utilizing a wide range of methods and frameworks to provide structure whilst promoting creativity and innovation.

As a confident and self-motivated professional with excellent communication skills, Tony is able to bring people together and get them working as a team quickly.

Tony is an Agile and Scrum trainer with a vast knowledge spanning IT Systems, Business Change, Program and Project Management. With excellent presentation skills and a solid background, he ensures that all clients gain maximum benefit from his training. He has successfully guided those new to the industry through their initial training, helped experienced staff as they progress in their careers, and worked at the director level advising on best use and practice, as well as tailoring courses to fulfil the exact needs of clients.