Ok, I am going to be brutally honest now - objectives are not sexy!
They are however: essential, important, brilliant to have (when written well) and kind of ..... boring .... dare I say it?
One of my biggest light bulb moments and one of my coaching clients just recently, has been that objectives are at the bottom of everything. If you are,for example:
- designing training
- delivering a presentation
- facilitating a meeting
- meeting with your boss
- emailing a key stakeholder to endorse something you are doing
If you do not have a clear objective for any of the above, the likelihood of the event being fruitful and productive does diminish.
The biggest problem therefore, for me, is how to get excited enough to write some great business focussed objectives when all I can think of are the great training activities that I am about to design?
Talking with one of my associates, Karen Foundling last week, I showed her a box of cards I had printed, which contain great verbs for writing objectives. They are colour coded:
- Turquoise - knowledge
- Pink - attitude
- Purple - skills to do with people
- Orange - physical skills
- Red - skills to do with thinking and the brain
We sat and looked at some scenarios, for which we needed to write objectives - laying out the cards on the table
The photos show the descriptors for the cards, with the cards underneath. This exercise actually became fun! We chose the appropriate colour, fished through the cards and hey presto, wrote great objectives using Robert Mager's PCS framework. Just the physical act of thumbing through the cards and arranging them in order helped us both to get our heads around how straight forward writing objectives can be.
Have you found a way to make objectives sexy?
Comments
I'm working on my Level 3 e lessons on Clear Learning Objectives and this looks look like a fun way way to deliver!